BlueHost Review. Complete and Unbiased Discussion
The first questions many users ask before they get a Webhosting package is normally based upon the limits:
- How much space will I have?
- How much bandwidth is offered?
Bluehost offer “unlimited” resources on these, but you have to be careful about “unlimited” means. No resource in this world could be unlimited, so this means that Bluehost offers such huge amounts of resources to website owners, that only less than 1 in 100 webmaster will end up reaching any limits, so if you plan to host a small to medium website with less than 50,000 files (and that is lot!), or many of them, because they even allow you to host unlimited number of domains with one account, you can’t go wrong hosting with Bluehost.
History of the Company
Bluehost actually is the owner of several web hosting business and many say that is dishonest to manage different price ranges for different sites when the service is the same. I disagree a lot with this. I personally checked some of the other websites of this same company and found some diferences, mostly in the time you should wait to get responses in the chat system.
At the time of this review, Bluehost has more than 1 million domains hosted and has been in business
The Service
One of the main things you should take into account when you get a hosting service is the “load average” of server. The load average of Bluehost was around 1, which is good, considering there are other services like Godaddy (terrible indeed) that have a load average of 8.
It includes fantastico which makes it easy to install several scripts and services with one click, like Wordpress, Joomla, support ticketing systems, forum software, shopping cart software like: Zencart and Oscommerce and many applications more.
Don’t believe about the claim that they make backups. Sure, maybe you will have one backup, but being several years in this industry, you should better have your own automatic backup system to keep safe your data if you update your site frecuently, or keep a static copy of your site if it doesn’t change, or isn’t changed often. This problem is something very common among all hosting companies as I could tell you about one weird thing that happened with me in my dedicated server with another company: I had a Wordpress website that was “finished” (not changed at all for a year or so) and suddenly, all categories lost the links and the website didn’t worked. I only was aware of the problem months after that happened, but the company only had recent backups and the oldest was for a month or so, so even restoring that wasn’t enough to fix the site and I had to start all over. Lesson learned! backup your sites automatically by yourself!.
They don’t activate SSH by default, SSH is enabled if you prove your identity sending some document. This will make it easier to mass delete files if you are comfortable using commands in the Unix system.
Support
Forget about the ticket system because it is disastrous. With that you could get answers to your questions maybe a day or 2 later. I found that the chat systems is almost instantaneous, and maybe because the majority use it, the ticket system has been left behind by the company. They also provide telephone support which is not outsourced, so you wouldn’t ear someone maybe you couldn’t understand.
This is where I saw the diference between Bluehost and some of the other webhosting companies this same company has. I got answers a lot faster than all other options and although I’m pretty much a power user that don’t need much help at all, people that value his time a lot should prefer this company over all other options.
Although Bluehost people are very helpful, don’t expect that they could support applications outside what is offered at the hosting or make changes to your scripts or files. They will only support things they offer and assist you in whatever they can, but most of the work will have to be done by you, as all other hosts.
Price
Bluehost costs $7.95 with a monthly payment plan, but the best deal is their 24 month plan which costs $6.95 a month. This is a very good price for what is offered, specially if you are going to host more than one domain.
Conclusion
Bluehost is a great option if you are looking for a hosting with great performance and support with a good price tag. Order Bluehost now. I assure you that you will not be dissapointed.
