In case you didn’t know to stay away from Bluehost, here’s your warning.
Most people recommending them are affiliates who make a big deal about how they’re “officially” recommended by WordPress. Maybe you didn’t know this, but Bluehost pays WordPress and their affiliates to recommend them, so this is about as unofficial as it gets.
Here’s the classic Bluehost story. Some “how to start a blog” YouTuber recommends Bluehost, so you sign up and get locked into a 1-3 year agreement. You pay it, setup your website, and all is good. Until a few weeks/months go by, then you wonder why your site is slow and goes down all the time. Their support doesn’t help, so you go to a Facebook group and ask the community:
By reading that story, hopefully I just saved you a couple hundred dollars and years of headaches. Because that happens to way too many people (usually people new to hosting).
Now let’s dive into why Bluehost isn’t good.
- Poor specs
- Too many Bluehost affiliates
- They pay to be recommended by WordPress
- Bluehost is slow
- CPU throttling + 200k inode limit
- Only 6 data centers with no full page caching
- Frequent downtimes with no guarantee or status page
- Malware/Sitelock scams
- Renewals are up to 338% intro prices
- No automatic backups on lower plans
- Poor support, long wait times
- Slow dashboard
- Stay away from Newfold Digital
- What people say about Bluehost in Facebook groups
1. Poor Specs
TLDR: use ChemiCloud instead.
| Bluehost Choice Plus Plan | Hostinger Business WP Plan | SiteGround GrowBig Plan | Scala Entry WP Cloud Plan | ChemiCloud WordPress Turbo Plan | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Shared | Shared | Shared | Shared/cloud | Shared |
| Server | Apache + Nginx | LiteSpeed | Apache + Nginx | LiteSpeed | LiteSpeed |
| Cache plugin | x | LiteSpeed Cache | SG Optimizer | LiteSpeed Cache | LiteSpeed Cache |
| CDN | Cloudflare free | QUIC.cloud ($.02-.08/GB) | QUIC.cloud ($.02-.08/GB) | QUIC.cloud ($.02-.08/GB) | QUIC.cloud ($.02-.08/GB) |
| Full page caching | x | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cores/RAM | Not listed | 2 cores/1.5GB | Not listed | No limit | 3 cores/3GB – scalable to 6/6 |
| Storage | 40GB SATA | 200GB SATA | 20GB SATA | 50GB NVMe | 40GB NVMe – 10/11 locations |
| Database | MySQL | MariaDB | MySQL | MariaDB | MariaDB |
| Object cache | x | Memcached | Memcached | Redis | Redis |
| Data centers | 6 | 8 | 10 | 2 | 11 |
| Control panel | cPanel | hPanel | Site Tools | sPanel | cPanel |
| Inodes | 200,000 | 600,000 | 400,000 | Unlimited | 500,000 |
| Major incidents | Downtimes | Downtimes, fake reviews, scams, bad poll | TTFB, DNS, CPU issues, controls FB groups | None | None |
| Migrations | Free on qualified accounts only | Unlimited (but screws it up) | $30/site | 1 free | 200 cPanel + 10 non-cPanel |
| Support | D | D | C | B | A |
| TrustPilot rating | 4.2/5 | 4.6/5 (fake) | 4.8/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 |
| Monthly price | $5.45 (1 year) | $3.99 (1-4 years) | $9.98 (3 years) | $14.95 (3 years) | $5.99 (3 years) |
| Renewals | $19.99/mo | $8.99-$14.99 | $19.95/mo | $24.95/mo | $19.95/mo |
| Price for 3 years | $304.08 | $299.40 | $659.64 | $538.20 | $215.64 |
Unlike Bluehost, they use faster LiteSpeed servers, NVMe SSDs, and Redis object cache. When using LiteSpeed, you’ll use the free LiteSpeed Cache plugin which does an great job with core web vitals, then use my tutorial to configure the settings. You’re less likely to have to upgrade because LiteSpeed is efficient with CPU usage (a common probably with Apache servers). And even if you do, you can add cores/RAM with their Turbo Boost add-on… not pay for a new plan. ChemiCloud also has a 5/5 star TrustPilot rating with several people who moved from Bluehost.
2. Too Many Bluehost Affiliates
People will say anything to make a buck.
Bluehost pays up to $150+/sale for affiliate commissions. Do the math: if you sign up for a $5.45/mo plan for 3 years, it costs about $196. Minus $150 in affiliate commissions leaves $46 which is the “real value” of their hosting. Do you think you’ll get great hosting with $46? Hell no.
Don’t trust any blog that recommends Bluehost.
3. They Pay To Be Recommended By WordPress
Bluehost and their affiliates brag how they’re recommended by WordPress.
Did you read the fine print?
Bluehost “donates” some of the fee back to WordPress (this is an undisclosed amount, but one can only imagine). Everything in the hosting industry is influenced by money now, so take this “recommendation” with a grain of salt. Same goes for SiteGround who I also don’t recommend.
4. Bluehost Is Slow
Between Bluehost’s slow servers and no full page caching on Cloudflare’s free plan, you don’t want to start your site with a slow TTFB, especially when there are hosts that average <100ms.
You can measure TTFB (time to first byte) in multiple locations using KeyCDN.
TTFB is part of core web vitals and is also 40% of your LCP score. With hosting/CDN being 2 main TTFB factors, Bluehost’s slow servers and “free Cloudflare” aren’t ideal. In fact, when I setup a website on Bluehost’s Plus Plan, Bluehost’s TTFB was usually around 1 second. This isn’t good considering PageSpeed Insights flags your TTFB if it’s over 600ms – which they did.
5. CPU Throttling + 200k Inode Limit
Instead of clearly listing how many resources you get on each plan (like CPU cores, RAM, and inodes), their hosting page only shows basic information like number of websites and storage. You can find more details which they bury on this page, but it still doesn’t list some basic specs.
This is usually a red flag.
Because in their resource policy and inode limits, you’ll see they have set limits on inodes, database tables, and most importantly, “excessive use of server CPU and memory resources.”
Which means if your site uses too much CPU/memory (whether it’s from more traffic, plugins that use memory, or even bots hitting your site), Bluehost will throttle resources which makes your website slower and can cause 5xx errors. Hosts that don’t list basic specs like cores/RAM usually have very low limits, otherwise they would clearly list them in their comparison chart.
With Bluehost’s lack of resources, I don’t recommend running WooCommerce, Elementor, Divi, and high-usage plugins on most shared hosting (especially Bluehost’s).
In their resource policy, Bluehost only allows 200,000 inodes on shared accounts. Many other shared hosts allow 400,000 – 600,000. Which means if you want to use Bluehost for email, those emails take up a lot of inodes (files) on your account, and you may end up exceeding your limit. VPS plans have a much higher 1M inode limit, but I still wouldn’t recommend Bluehost for that.
| Inodes | 200,000 |
| Database tables | 5,000 |
| Database size | 10GB |
| Single database | 5GB |
6. Only 6 Data Centers With No Full Page Caching
Bluehost only has a few data centers and doesn’t let you select the location at checkout.
| Provo, Utah (US) | Mumbai (IND) | Hong Kong (CN) |
| Orem, Utah (US) | London, UK (EU) | Shanghai, Mainland (CN) |
Plus, their Cloudflare integration doesn’t support full page caching which improves TTFB in tools like KeyCDN. The closer the data center is to the testing location (and your visitors), the faster your TTFB will be. With limited data centers and no full page caching, TTFB is very slow.
7. Frequent Downtimes With No Guarantee Or Status Page
Search the word “down” in Bluehost’s 1-3 star TrustPilot reviews.
Without getting too technical, all those “99% uptimes tests” usually don’t mean anything especially because “scheduled maintenance” doesn’t count. That’s why I like to check how many bad reviews mention “down.” Bluehost has a lot, and instead of an uptime guarantee, they only have a brief network service uptime agreement with a blocked network status page.
8. Malware/Sitelock Scams
You can read a detailed review of this.
Bluehost, HostGator, and other Newfold Digital brands have an ongoing scam where they say you have malware, take down your website(s), then refer you to Sitelock (their partner) who quotes you hundreds of dollars each month to remove it and a monthly fee to protect your site.
Don’t fall for it.
9. Renewals Are Up To 338% Intro Prices
You only get 1 year of the intro price or 3 years for a somewhat discounted price. Then depending on which plan you use, it can renew up to 338% more (see their monthly pricing).
The main problem with this is that as your website changes and you add more plugins or get more traffic, your website will require more server resources to accommodate it. But since you signed up for 3 years upfront, your plan may not have enough resources and you will need to upgrade anyway. Not to mention once you learn how bad Bluehost is, you’ll want to leave but can’t since you’ve already paid upfront. And at that point, the money is considered a sunk cost.
Don’t fall for 3 year price traps especially with Bluehost.
Renewal Rates:
| Plan | Basic | Plus | Choice Plus | Pro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Month Term | 10.99/mo | 14.99/mo | 19.99/mo | 28.99/mo |
| 24 Month Term | 9.99/mo | 13.99/mo | 18.99/mo | 27.99/mo |
| 36 Month Term | 9.99/mo | 13.99/mo | 18.99/mo | 26.99/mo |
10. No Automatic Backups On Lower Plans
Again, if you check this comparison table, don’t get automatic backups on most plans.
11. Poor Support, Long Wait Times
You’re not going to get great support with cheap hosting, period.
You can expect long wait times (i.e. 30+ minutes) and they will most likely refer you to articles. I always look at TrustPilot reviews even though they’re solicited by most host’s support team. Bluehost used to have a horrible 1.5/5 star rating but it seems to have improved since it’s 3.8/5.
12. Slow Dashboard
Navigating Bluehost’s dashboard is a pain. It can sometimes take 5-10s for pages in the dashboard to load. It’s not a huge deal but can be frustrating if you’re used to working quickly.
It’s nice they use cPanel even after cPanel increased prices, so that’s a plus:
Their general dashboard isn’t bad either which includes server caching.
13. Stay Away From Newfold Digital
Bluehost is owned by Newfold Digital (formerly EIG).
They have a long history of buying hosting companies and running them into the ground like they did with HostGator. They’re known for cutting costs and “streaming” their services. But probably the worst part is a lack of innovation. As LiteSpeed, cache plugins, and other features continue to improve WordPress speed, Bluehost / Newfold Digital do little to progress forward.
14. What People Say About Bluehost In Facebook Groups
How many times do you have to hear it?
Join the WP Speed Matters Facebook Groups to get less biased feedback. Many groups are run by affiliates, and SiteGround’s community manager/affiliates are also admins for several groups (that’s the only reason you see SiteGround promoted everywhere). Don’t fall for either of them.
Cheers,
Tom
I am trying to find a place where I can write some real nasty review about them and I cant find any places. You are absolutely correct, this is THE WORST EVER hosting company on this planet.
Needless to say their staff is TOTALLY INCOMPETENT!!! An ABSOLUTE ZERO!!!
So if you have a place to post my review about them – please do or share a link with me where I can do it and I will flood them with 0 reviews. They are a nightmare.
I would start by writing a review on TrustPilot and engaging in Reddit/Quora forums. And on your blog if you have one.
I’m also doing my best to tell people to avoid them. I’m sure quite a few people will read these comments too… most of them are also nightmare stories.
So true. Decided to transfer to a new host several weeks ago since loading times for my image-heavy sites were getting slower and slower and renewal costs for the pro shared hosting plan were high and included new limitations. Fortunately I finished moving the content from the two sites I care about last week. I decided to move the others over yesterday and discovered that they were all down. Bluehost has been running large ads for Sitelock all week, and after spending some 30 minutes on chat before receiving a response, I was told that my sites were blocked due to Malware and that I needed a consultation with Sitelock. So glad to be leaving this host.
Thank you for telling the truth!
Never trust your business (website, blog, anything) with Bluehost, because their unstable, amateur service will ruin you. The constant downtimes will negate all your hard work, like SEO. Please, learn from others’ mistakes.
Please add this to the list :
Went from $200+ per year for VPS hosting to over $1000 per year. with $200/Year SSL.?????
Thank you for an honest review. Here is our experience right now.
We are on a VPS server and the server went down and the problem was from their end. I used chat yesterday Monday Oct. 23, 2023 and they created a ticket and informed me the problem was on their end and it just probably needs a restart. This was around 10AM PST. Then I started another chat in the afternoon around 3-5PM PST. Asking for a follow up. Still no information and they just left it at that and said it could take 24-48 hours. Today, Oct 24, 2023, I called around 8AM, first call took my info and just got disconnected with no information provided back. Then called back again with in the next 5 minutes and got in touch with someone and confirmed the problem was on their end. Then they said they will escalate the issue with their higher level techs. Then they 10AM came, 24 hours from the first report, still no answer. Called them again around 1:15PM PST and they just said again that our server is down and they don’t have any updates for me. Ticket Number is S-2409824! If you are reading this from Bluehost, you customer service has dropped and your prices had gone up!
Go find hosting somewhere else if you don’t want your business to wait 24-48 hours to get an answer.
Just try to re-negotiate or leave after the promotional period. I dare you. Hope you like being conned by work-at-home, impossible to understand, rude people from India. Prepare for bad connections, ludacris waits, and hangups as well. #NIGHTMARE
the rocket.net site doesn’t load – not a great sign
I was getting bad gateways on my site for a bit. Might have been a temporary issue with Cloudflare. Usually doesn’t happen.
I’ve been a bluehost customer for over a decade at least, and I can confirm that it’s been a nightmare. Now that I’m actively handling things, every attempt to make changes or organize my account to prepare to build a new site doesn’t go through. It’s going to be an effort to switch but before I launch this new business I feel I must. This is disappointing (to say the least). I’m looking into the sites you’ve mentioned, I’d hate to move everything (and it’s A LOT) to only run into the same issues.
Hey Karissa,
Ya I get the hesitation to move. Maybe start slow and feel it out. The hosts should be able to work with you on migrations, pricing, etc if you have lots of sites. Lmk if there’s anything I can do to help!
BLUEHOST=WASTED TIME!!!!!!!
BAD, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!
DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTNCES CONSIDER BLUE(SHI*)!!!
Unless of course you like Migraines.
I do want to thank give a warm “Thank you” to SiteGround…for saving my life.
Little more than the other guys, but 10x worth the extra cost.
Put them in your top 3, you wont regret it. My personal experience.
All you say is true. Whenever you want to have a laugh, just head over to Bluehost support. It’s really so disappointing, I don’t know what to say. The only thing they are good at is that they never fail to disappoint. Having worked with many hosting companies over my 20 year career as a web developer, I can honestly say they are probably one of the worst choices when it comes to hosting.
Bluehost service is completely gone down hill. After having multiple issues over several months I finally had to cancel the service only to find they give no refunds after 15 days! What legitimate company does that? I’ve paid for 3 years of hosting and now I’m out almost $400. Don’t walk, RUN!
As a former user, I don’t recommend Bluehost. Slow performance, overcrowded servers, lackluster support, hidden costs, constant upselling, migration difficulties, and limited resources were my concerns. Explore better hosting options.
I just left Bluehost because I never got around to setting up my website the way I wanted and didn’t have the time or energy anymore. I initially had a pretty neutral feeling about them. I started off the conversation by saying I wanted to delete my account. Oh god was the customer support awful. They made me “authenticate” who I was a million times, the rep telling me the code that he sent me and worked with the website wasn’t sufficient, re-do my password, add passwords to things I didn’t have passwords on etc. Then after all that they tried to get me off the chat but still never did anything but “verify” that I wasn’t renewing anything. I had to ask an additional 6 times to delete my account. They finally “initiated” that after asking questions like if my payment method still worked, which shouldn’t matter because I’m not giving them any more money. Then it finally ended with them sending me the literal script with quotes still in it for the rep to tell me to have a good day and to rate them (which clearly they don’t care about because they don’t ask for anything beyond a number). And still I’m not even sure if they delete my account.
Bluehost is a nightmare! If you care for your nerves and health and money, don’t even think about Bluehost.
The server is SUPER slow.
The customer service and support is AWFUL. You don’t get any response from them. They just say sorry, all the time they apologise and say nice words, trying to calm you down with talking therapy. NO, absolutely NO specific info. Just talking.
During the past year I’ve moved most of my sites away from them to another server (Interserver), but the ones hosted on Bluehost ALWAYS have problems and they are unable to do anything.
The phone support is a waste of time, they waste your time with validation, verification and in the end they promise that someone will email you. In some cases it took them a month to send an email!
The chat support is absolutely useless. After 2-3 hours of chat, they repeat your question as an answer! “After checking, I see that your account is suspended”!! I mean this is a shame!
There is no normal ticketing system.
They lost ALL my sites and data here’s their reply after 72 hours!
Read and judge for yourself.
—————————–
Thank you for contacting us. I’m Nikhil reaching you on case#S-2213608 regarding the website and email functionality. I understand how important it is for your website and emails to be up and running and I will be happy to assist you with the same. I apologize for the delay in response!
From the case notes, I understand that your websites and emails were down. I am sorry about the inconvenience you were experiencing with these issues and I will look into this for you.
Upon investigation, I found that the hosting upgrade done recently was stuck due to some pending task in the account resulting in website and email downtime.
Rest assured, we are still investigating on this and an email will be sent via the same thread once there is an update regarding the issue. There will be no further actions required at your end. We once again apologize for the inconvenience and greatly appreciate your cooperation with us in this regard.
Please let us know in case of additional queries. We are happy to help!
Thanks for your time!
Regards,
Nikhil H
Escalated Support
——————–
Hi Tom,
I’m glad to find your honest review about populare host share service while I’m gonna build a website first time. With my short knowledge on share host, I had found bluehost as a beginner friendly through a vlog.
But i decided to research more about. Now I find how horrible bluehost is!
Few days ago, i found Namecheap share hosting service Through the recommendation from an SEO expert.
Tom, I would like to know what’s your opinion about Namecheap?
Hey Zinnat,
Funny, I was just updating this review. I wouldn’t use NameCheap either. Get hosting from a hosting company, not your domain registrar or page builder. For shared hosting, I generally recommend a LiteSpeed host.
Hey Tom,
Nice article I’m hosted on Bluehost and I evertime I noticed my site slow. I even made a table to record when my site speed drops. It’s sad I already got Bluehost 2 months ago and paid for a whole year. I didn’t make enough research . Enough said when the time comes I will ditch them completely.
At least you didn’t pay for 3 years like a lot of people. Sounds good, lmk if you have questions when the time comes.
Hi Tom,
I stumbled across this review just before signing up for Bluehost – thank you! I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about code or building websites and would like your recommendation. Where can I build an easy website (all by myself) and purchase a domain with access to a business email? I’m an interior designer and just need a basic website and email with my domain so I look more professional. Thanks in advance! -Amie
Hey Amie,
Whew, glad I could stop you in your tracks! Yeah, definitely go with someone else.
Instead of Bluehost, look at ChemiCloud. They’re similar to Bluehost between their prices/cPanel, free domain for 1 year, email, etc. But their performance/support are waaaay better. Once you buy a hosting plan and register your domain, you’ll need to install WordPress while adding free Let’s Encrypt SSL (to make your site HTTPS). Once WordPress is installed, they will give you a URL to your WordPress dashboard.
Login to WordPress, go to plugins > add new, then search for “Astra Starter Templates.” They should have a few themes based around interior design. You’ll be able to import these to your site in 1-click which makes your site look exactly like the template. When you import it, you’ll choose between Elementor, Gutenberg, etc. Elementor is definitely easiest and is drag and drop. It’s not the best for speed but using Bluehost would have been much worse. Then it’s just a matter of learning WordPress/Elementor.
Of course I’m all about speed so… one thing you should definitely do is install the LiteSpeed Cache plugin and use my tutorial to configure it.
If you wouldn’t mind using my affiliate link to ChemiCloud I’d appreciate it (if not, no biggie).
Lmk if you get stuck or have questions! ChemiCloud + WordPress + Astra Starter Template + Elementor would be my top recommendation based on what you said.
Tom
Bluehost is a scam. I only used them for a short time, for a temporary website. When I tried to cancel, I was ignored, and the recurring payments kept being charged to my credit card. When you call the phone number, the automated service says to enter a code that’s been sent to your email (which 2 years ago when I tried cancelling the first time, didn’t work at all, and the emails never came through). There was no other phone number and no other way to get through to a human. I had to go through my CC and ask them to block the charges, since Bluehost was impossible to actually get ahold of. MONTHS later, after being charged yet again for several. months, I somehow was able to finally get ahold of a human (I can’t remember who ended up giving me the “secret” phone number). The lady said that it was their policy to only refund the last 90 days, so they wouldn’t refund ALL of the MANY months that they’d overcharged me. She claimed to have made sure that my account was completely cancelled (even though I had already tried to do that over a year before).
Guess what?! My CC was just charged yet again for $59…over a full year since the last mentioned “cancelling/refunding”. I called my CC company, and they said that even though I have a new CC since this all happened (fraud last fall), Bluehost had requested to “Push Through” the charge, which I guess something that Visa and Mastercard are allowing! Before I called her, I had tried to call the Bluehost phone number yet again, and this time the email actually did come through with a 6 digit “code”, but when I entered it on the phone like the automated voice said to, it didn’t work and it just kept repeating to “enter the number”. The lady at my CC company said that all of these tactics are very popular with shady companies, even big decently well known ones! DO NOT get roped into Bluehost, as it’s 100% IMPOSSIBLE TO CANCEL YOUR SERVICE OR GET REFUNDS LATER. And you will be wasting MANY HOURS of time trying to deal with it later…like I still am 3 YEARS LATER!
Damn, sucks you had to go through that. I hate when companies do this. Even when try hide the cancellation button in their dashboard I get a bad taste in my mouth. I’ve seen many reports GreenGeeks and Hostinger do something similar.
Yip! I only built my website not long ago, jumped in with bluehost because I just didn’t know better, wanted a decent price because in all honestly website building was brand new to me and I didn’t even know if I could figure it out.
Months later I kind of managed to pull it off, but my god bluehost is the absolute worst. It’s one problem after another.
Frustration lead me to google “why is bluehost the worst”, turns out there’s quite a lot to say about it. It’s utter bollocks. I will be switching as soon as possible.
Thank you for your article!
Thank you for an honest, comprehensive review Tom. BlueHost = frequent downtimes; snail slow websites and worst customer service. Over 2 weeks ago I was giving a developer access to one of my sites via MAESTRO when the databases of ALL my sites vanished in front of my eyes (and his). I was on my.bluehost.com when apparently the BH agent I was talking with did not like that I told him he was not been very helpful and decided to delete all databases. WTF? I’m moving my sites away from BH! Your review has been very helpful. Thanks
That’s absurd they would do that. Yes, any time! Us affiliates gotta make a buck somehow, but I ain’t selling my soul to promote POS companies.
Thanks for your response Tom. I’m sure BH is monitoring your site. And apparently they read my post of 3 days ago. Today, out of the blue, I got an email inviting me to take a survey: “Dear Customer, At Bluehost we value our customers and want to get to know more about you, so that we can better serve you. We are inviting you to participate in 7 minute survey. Your participation in our research is helpful and appreciated”. Did I mention I have over a dozen websites on BH?
Regards
Hi Tom, it’s so refreshing to see an honest review! I am about to start a blog and have procrastinated for about a month over hosting. Initially I was naively just going to go with Bluehost as they seemed to be coming out top in all the reviews. It was only once I started watching videos of one particular high-profile blogger, where he stated that one way he makes money is that companies pay him to be moved up the ranking in review posts, that I started to catch on (naive I know!). In addition, in several of his videos he states that he uses and recommends WPX (and at one stage directly compares them to Bluehost), yet WPX appear nowhere in his ’27 Best Web Hosting Services of 2023′. Hmm, strange. Now I am absolutely sick of every blog I read recommending Bluehost when they’re clearly not the best (and they’re also over-egging themselves with an incorrect Trustpilot rating on their homepage). I obviously want to make money via affiliate marketing but this all seems a bit on the unethical side to me (especially as I’m doing a finance blog where somebody could be investing their life savings using a platform I ‘recommend’!). Anyway, I’d actually come across WPX prior to the above-mentioned videos and was leaning towards them. Have you had any experience of them? Keep up the good (honest!) work. Thanks!
Sorry Tom, only just found your site and realised you already have a review on WPX so going to read now!
Hey Laura,
Yes, most blogs are paid garbage. A lot of people stopped using Google search because most blogs simply don’t tell truth and just care about affiliate commissions. TrustPilot reviews are usually very solicited and don’t give an accurate picture of the company.
As for WPX, I wouldn’t use them either. They don’t have a redundancy system which is VERY risky as they’ve already had a bad worldwide outage, the CEO is irresponsible and doesn’t admit to mistakes or uses it as an opportunity to improve the company, and it’s still shared hosting with frequent downtimes. They blew up mainly because of a certain blogger who I bet you can guess his name. However, his “best hosting list” is laughable where he lists Bluehost as #6, WP Engine #3 (who offers a whopping $200/sale in commissions), and SiteGround/Kinsta as #1 and #2. Again, these are “mainstream hosts” ranked by affiliate commissions, not quality.
For low traffic sites on a budget, and for those that don’t require lots of resources, I usually recommend a “LiteSpeed host” like NameHero or ChemiCloud. They’re cheap, fast for the price, have decent support, and the LiteSpeed setup with LiteSpeed Cache QUIC.cloud is great.
For higher traffic sites or those that require more resources like WooCommerce/dynamic sites, I’d probably jump straight to cloud hosting. Something like Cloudways, Scala Hosting, or I’m obviously a big fan of Rocket.net which is who I use. It also depends on how hands-on you want to get, for example, there are many control panels like RunCloud and even Cloudways which can be more confusing than someone like Rocket.net.
Sorry, I know it’s getting long, but one last thing to consider is the location of the site’s visitors. If you plan on using a CDN with full page caching (i.e. QUIC.cloud’s paid plan, Cloudflare APO, or Rocket.net’s Cloudflare Enterprise), then location really doesn’t matter as much. But if you’re not going to be using a CDN with full page caching, you’ll want to choose a host who has data center close to visitors.
Please lmk if you have any questions – always here to help.
Just want to let you know I’m chatting with guy at rocket.net and I told him I came through you. He spoke highly of you. Chad his name was.
Got to also add chat service at rocket.net was SO kind and helpful. I could not have been better taken care of. With your post I arrived there. I was overwhelmed for days prior to this. So thank you. To both you and Chad at Rocket.net.
Thanks Rebecca! Chad is awesome, sometimes promoting hosting gets old but yeah, their team is a breath of fresh air. I appreciate you and lmk if I can be of any help.
Hello Tom,
I found your review through a google search for Bluehost alternatives. I know that your audience is more experienced than I am when it comes to website building, but I was curious to know your opinion on some alternatives for a hosting site for beginner bloggers like myself. Yes, I am a beginner, but I’d rather start with a hosting platform that I won’t have trouble with later on as my blog grows into a business. I’ve read enough reviews to know that although Bluehost “seems” like the better choice for a beginner blogger, it is not the best for what I’m looking for. Any advice would be helpful.
Thanks!
Hey AC,
NameHero and ChemiCloud are both good for beginners. Similar pricing than Bluehost with cPanel, but faster. And unlike Bluehost, you don’t have to pay for a cache plugin to get the best results since you can use the free LiteSpeed Cache plugin. Inside LiteSpeed Cache, you’ll see an option to add QUIC.cloud which has a free CDN plan. This way, you get the benefits of a good cache plugin/CDN with no or minimal cost (only cost would be if you were to upgrade to QUIC’s paid plan). Both NameHero/ChemiCloud have better support than Bluehost IMO.
It’s pretty much inevitable that you’ll switch hosts eventually (even if it’s years down the line as your site grows) since you would likely want to scale into VPS hosting like Scala Hosting, Cloudways, or Rocket.net… which tend to be better at VPS hosting than most shared providers). As a starting point though, the first 2 I mentioned should “last longer” than Bluehost since they’re faster, can handle more traffic, and have less limitations.
Hope that helps – lmk if you have any follow up questions.
Tom
My gallery has been in business since 1985. My website has been with BlueHost for 10 years, beginning when they where in Provo, Utah. Ten years ago, I would have given them ten stars for service. Here’s a message to abusive, woman-hating “Bob” in billing in Arizona: today, if I could join a small claims lawsuit against BlueHost, I’d be right on board. Because that’s not going to happen, I’m suing you for $10k.
My website wasn’t set on auto-renew so it expired November 19 and was offline. No big deal. I renewed for a year on November 23, the same day I received an email from WordPress that our site had a critical error. How is it that a site is offline, then injected with malware the same day it renews? After paying for the website renewal and three months of CodeGuard, we never saw our gallery site again. BlueHost ran a scan, then told me I had to buy a Sitelock subscription to secure the site and clean it of malware. Okay. Fine. They couldn’t restore a backup because SiteBackUp Pro had never been installed on the sub-domain. When they tried to restore using Codeguard, that didn’t work either. This was a small website. No ecommerce, thankfully. Can you imagine? All of my customers would have been compromised.
By the time I’d paid for Sitelock, I’d already been on the phone with support for twelve hours. I’d been verbally abused by Bob who refused to acknowledge they’d never protected our subdomain with the backup we’d paid for (that’s easily proved in court). Here it is. Seven days later. The site is still down. Sitelock is blaming BlueHost for not updating or correctly installing the SSL and BueHost is blaming Sitelock for not removing the malware. And I’m stuck in the middle.
Bluehost was great when their support was based in the USA. It is all offshore now. They fired their entire American staff.
Here’s most of the email we received from Codeguard:
“…We were not able to completely restore all of the files for your website. (My note: they restored none of the files)…
“This can happen when the FTP or SFTP user associated with your website does not have the necessary permissions to add, remove, and change some files, your server runs out of disk space, or if the connection between our servers and yours becomes unreliable for an extended period of time.
Issues:
We were unable to restore the following paths to your server. This can happen if your server runs out of disk space or if we do not have the permissions necessary to add the files.
/home/…./public_html/….ery/index.php
What do I do now?
Don’t worry, we still have your data! (My note: There is no data—the data is gone.) Please review the following questions to determine what to do next:
1.Did you modify your website or database during the restore? (NO, we did not!) Modifications made to your website or database could have interfered with our restore process, and it may be the reason your restore failed. If this is the case please restart this restore from your
dashboard now.
2. Did your server go down during the restore? (NO, we did not!)
When we lose the connection to your server during a restore, we will attempt to try again at a later time. After several attempts, the restore will fail permanently. If this is the case please restart this restore from your dashboard now.
3. Are you a developer, or do you know one? (NO, we did not!)
If you feel comfortable attempting a manual restore, please request a zip file of your website backup and the corresponding database backup from your
dashboard now.
If something’s wrong with your website and the questions above do not apply to you, then please
email our support team. We’ll make sure everything gets straightened out!
We could not restore some files
CodeGuard Team
Sat, Nov 26, 2022 at 5:45 AM
As an aside, Bluehost started sending us invoices meant for other customers. The information included the customer’s credit card number, name, address, product. we contacted the customers to let them know.
Thank you for posting this website and giving us a chance to vent. We loved Bluehost once, but they just don’t care about us.
Stories like this are rarely heard because of the crazy amount of censorship and affiliate bs. Sorry this happened, shame on them.
I totally agree with you Tom. I used to use Bluehost before they joined EIG. At that time the performance was quite good. But after that it just seems to look good because of the many good reviews from affiliates. This keeps the real bad review hidden. A few years ago I switched to Asphostportal, which I like that they are more stable and have friendly staff. I can’t stand Bluehost anymore.
Yeah that’s mainstream hosting for you. They all get too big and the quality goes down because they want more profit/marketing.
Caveat emptor. My review on TrustPilot:
How the Mighty Have Fallen
A year ago, my wife asked for web host recs for her new business. I recommended Bluehost.
Don’t I look like a choad. In case you’re not aware of the carnage going on at Bluehost, it’s truly unbelievable. BH users have flooded Reddit to describe being locked out of their sites for weeks or even months and being offered one month’s free hosting rather than a fix.
Go on to Twitter and search “bluehost support.” Hordes of angry business owners whose sites have been locked up, locked down, and crashing — for months. BH support is lazily pasting the same canned response that they know, they’re trying, blah, blah, blah.
Whatever. Working people can’t afford excuses. Not that Bluehost is even bothering to make them anymore.
So, my wife built her company’s site using Bluehost’s Website Builder, which is now broken and — like all of the other problems at BH — has absolutely no ETA on a fix.
She described contacting tech support and talking to someone who knew about as much about web hosting as she did. The upshot is that she cannot change so much as a comma because it’s all locked inside the BH Website Builder and the Website Builder is hopelessly borked.
I’m speechless, honestly. I’d been with BH for several years and found their hosting and prices to be good, and their support to be excellent. My site isn’t super elaborate so I have less exposure to the kinds of things that might gum up a website, but the few times I had a hiccup with my site, I opened a chat box and a BH tech fixed it immediately.
I read from several sources that BH began its decline after they were acquired by multi-national host-wrecker EIG.
That tracks. The old Bluehost is gone forever. Run, don’t walk.
About a2hosting, what is your opinion?
It’s decent but there are better options IMO. Need to use higher their 3rd highest plan for it to be worth it with LiteSpeed, etc. I would look into NameHero or ChemiCloud instead.
Yes, I totally agree with you Tom. Most of the bloggers recommend Bluehost for just their earnings through affiliate. Some are didn’t even use the Bluehost ever. Support and speed are the main concern. I switched to Delegate Hosting 5 years ago, speed and support is much appreciated.
Glad you found a good host! Never tried them but I usually find smaller hosts are better than mainstream.
Yes, I am struggling with bluehost. I use their bluehost website builder plugin to create my pages and it’s not working for over a month. I am not able to add/edit contents for a month and they don’t have any timeline when the issue will be fixed.
I am exploring alternatives. Can you suggest something which is easy as drag and drop and cost effective to build a basic blogging site? I definitely want to switch over from bluehost. It’s a pain.
For drag and drop Elementor is what a lot of people use. It does add extra CSS/JS/fonts so just make sure you optimize them (I have a tutorial for it in the “themes” category).
Just make sure you have a good host and cache plugin (i.e. NameHero Turbo Cloud, Cloudways Vultr HF, Rocket.net) and LiteSpeed Cache or FlyingPress.
I use GeneratePress and although it’s not drag and drop, it’s still pretty easy with Gutenberg.
Many of us who built our site with Website Builder have been receiving the message “We couldn’t connect Bluehost Website Builder” when we try to edit our sites. I know I’m not the only one because Bluehost told me this is a known issue and no one promised the builder would work! It has been months of trying and waiting as “our team is working on this” with no proactive contact on progress. They aren’t working on it. They know this is an issue and continue to sell and promote the product. Complaint posts about this by others seem to get frozen from comments or deleted instead of resolved. You who have used Website Builder, try editing your site. You who suffer this with me, maybe we can we put pressure on them if we speak up together like in a class action.
I hope it works but best not to support them at all. Unfortunately, there are plenty of horror stories like this.
The same with me; it seems it has started in May. Many people are getting ‘happy talks’ from Bluehost support team, that’s all. Please check: https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueHost/comments/v64ylm/bluehost_website_builder_dead_for_a_week/
yes some pressure would be good
Tom… thank.you.so.much for stating all of this It’s really off-putting when a site I like endorses BH.
DON’T TRUST BLUEHOST!!!! They would not cancel my account and refund my money. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR CC!
Thanks for the review.
Hey Tom,
I host my website on Bluehost and I am an affiliate (not one of those 10k-100k affiliates though). I started blogging on shared hosting, I’m now at a stage where I’m abit more serious and decided to switch to a VPS with Bluehost. Its ofcourse not as cheap as shared hosting, but in conjunction with that, my theme & CDN, site speed is quite good.
I consider myself to have an honest look at those that I am affiliated with and only recommend those that I use. I will admit that the shared hosting can be slow when you start generating traffic or have a heavy site, but I personally cant fault their support. Im not sure how often you’ve personally come into contact with them, but for me, I’ve had one ocassion out of approx 30 where I thought they werent going to be able to help me (i kindly asked to speak to someone else, who was capable). They helped me move over from shared server to the VPS aswell, and this support Im mentioning Ive had on shared and the VPS, so it wasnt just a matter of paying more for better service… Although the waiting times are much shorter.
I recommend Bluehost for people starting out with a blog, especially the shared plan, as 99% of people who start dont have the perseverance to actually turn their blog into a money making business. The low cost provides an easy entry point to “test the waters” and learn a thing or two before getting serious.
Obviously if you arent new to blogging and have a plan and knowledge to implement it, then go straight for faster hosting like VPS/Cloud/Dedi, whether thats from Bluehost or wherever.
I actually came to the comment section to point out that in your one pic of everyone recommending bluehost, that Neil Patels article also recommends and is affiliated with Bluehost
Hey David,
You’re right, I think recommending one host over another comes down to your audience. For people who are just starting, Bluehost is cheap, easy to setup, and is a decent option the test the waters as you say. Most of my audience is somewhat experienced with speed/hosting in which case it wouldn’t make sense to recommend them.
Yes, Neil Patel, Patt Flynn, and many popular bloggers recommend Bluehost. Then again, their tutorials are more aimed at beginners and to be honest, I think many of them are also influenced by commission rates. I think most SEOs prefer to get their info from places like Backlinko.
I agree with almost everything you said. I have used bluehost for three sites. The service was not very good. In fact they continue to charge me for site that I had closed down and it took many tries to get a hold of someone who can get me my money. Really frustrating. I ultimately switched to siteground because the bluehost cannot handle the speeds of a WooCommerce site.
One thing that I don’t agree with this article is that a stock ticker means bad service. While this can be the case, it really is in the interest of the stockholders for the company to put out the best product. While there are some examples of publicly owned companies that do not take care of the companies underneath them and just cut cost, overall that isn’t the case. Just one example that comes mind is Google fiber. Google has a stock ticker however Google fiber is by far the best internet service I’ve ever had. I have had internet service from some private company that’s so small and their service didn’t even compare.
That’s true, maybe it’s not really relevant and I should delete it from the article.
wordpress Officially recommendedbluehost as best web hosting as it provide best sitelock for our website it prevents from cyber, malware, ddos and hacking attacks. one of the cheapest service provider in the world.
Cheap, fast, good. I would argue they’re just the first one. WordPress recommends Bluehost because they pay them. If they work for you by all means keep using them.
Agree Tom. Check out this
Yep, lots of different opinions and conversations in Facebook Groups. They “work” for some, but they’re definitely not the best or fastest.