Bluehost Review: Top Web Hosts in the USA

Reviewed By: Greg Narayan
Last Update: March 12th, 2019

About Us: As a WordPress help community with thousands of successful setups completed since 2014, we’d say we know hosting. As you’ll see below, Bluehost excelled in our web hosting review, and made this a pleasure to write!

Learn step-by-step how to install WordPress at Bluehost using our Updated WordPress Bluehost Guide.

A few of the better known sites who share our web hosting advice:

Why Our Reviews?

I used to wonder why people talk about web hosting so much. Consider this: Google states that a 1 second decrease in your site’s speed can cause a 20% loss in readership. If you have 100K visitors, that’s 20K people gone forever! The web host you choose can have huge effects on the success of your business, and your happiness!

Aggregate Rating:

5 out of 5 stars (5 / 5)

Cheapest Plan:

$2.95/mo (65% discount)

Recommended for Total Beginners: YES

Favorite Plan:

Basic Hosting Package

Disclosure: The star ratings in these guides are not the result of aggregate user ratings or user reviews. Though we regularly discuss hosting methods and products on this blog, the only methodology used to form these star ratings is that they are my personal review of each product. I am an affiliate of Bluehost who receives a commission at no additional cost to the user each time they click through and sign up. Thank you for your support!

5 Reasons People Choose Bluehost Over The Rest of the Pack:

Let’s start our Bluehost review with the short list of what makes hosting at Bluehost a total no-brainer for 1000s of customers every day.

1. Cheap plans + value: Bluehost has created two amazingly valuable plans for beginners – the Basic Web Hosting plan and the Plus Hosting plan. More details on this below in our pricing breakdown!

2. 24/7/365 support: Bluehost is ready to talk hosting, WordPress, etc all day every day. They will even email you follow up answers if they find them, and to check in on your progress!

3. Free daily backups: If you really make a mess of things and overcook the goose, you can always roll it right back to how it looked earlier that day.

4. Recommended by WordPress: Automattic (the company behind WordPress) works with and approves Bluehost. Peace of mind? Check.

5. Free SSL: Google and SEO now generally require an SSL certificate (that little padlock icon you see in the upper left of our site) It’s needed for more than just eCommerce nowadays, blogs, etc.

For most of us looking for a great cheap web hosting plan, that’s more than enough to seal the deal. However, if you’re still unsure about Buehost or just love reading the full user-manual of details (that’s us) keep reading below!

About Bluehost: Our Best USA Web Host

Bluehost has just narrowly eded out HostGator this year. Why? Well, a better question would be, why not?

Every plan at Bluehost comes with top of the line WordPress.org installation tools to make it easy to make any website or blog.

They have a dedicated Bluehost panel inside the WP dashboard so you can get help any time.

Plus, with each plan you get a free domain name (value $15) for the 1st year. If you’re just starting out, that’s a nice gift!

Who is Bluehost? They were founded by Matt Heaton in 2003 in Provo, Utah. However Heaton had dreams of Bluehost as early as 1996, when he founded two other web hosts (50Megs and 0Catch) which eventually joined forces to created Bluehost.

bluehost headquarters
1st floor: Bluehost. 2nd floor: Gatorade. They both go hard.
Bluehost employs 700 people from Provo, Utah including remote based help experts, and hosts just over 1.2 million WordPress websites.
 
Bluehost Employees Lounge Party
Why do tech companies have all the fun?

Bluehost’s most affordable WordPress plan, the Basic plan, consistently outperformed each web host here with page load times of under 1.1 seconds on a basic WordPress website. This is the kind of speed of big time WP sites like Forbes, Time and Disney.

Not only is Bluehost fast, but they have given back immense amounts in the past year to WordPress development, sponsoring Word Camps through the US and teaching introductory code in impoverished neighborhoods. We love a good free tutorial, and Bluehost takes it to the next level here.

As an official recommended host, BlueHost offers a clean and minimalist approach to web hosting over 3 million customers love.

High powered tools to help your blog grow to over 100,000 visitors each month. Great support, high quality tutorials for beginners, obviously supported by many pro bloggers.

Their cheapest packages start at only $3.95, which includes the 50% off discount we get our readers here at DearBlogger!

Pros:

BIRTHDAY SALE – 60% off on Shared Hosting (use our link above to get this deal) and get started with our video to Install WordPress!

Premium support, holds that rare WordPress recommendation, and only a few clicks need to get a website live. From everyone we speak to regarding their web hosting experience, Bluehost have been the most user friendly web host in the US, by a long shot too! Plus all that good stuff listed above!

Cons:

The most basic plan gives you a touch less storage space at 50GB. But considering this blog here has been around since 2012 and only weights 5GB, you’ll have to really blog hard to fill 10GB’s!

Affordability 100%
Easy Setup 98%
Speed, Performance & Power 93%
WordPress Tools Easy of Use 100%

Bluehost Review: Pricing and Setup

So we are set on going with Bluehost. But you ask, “Which Bluehost plan should I choose?”

We should note, we now have a complete Bluehost website WordPress tutorial live for anyone who’d rather watch than read!

In a nutshell, we recommend getting the Basic hosting plan at Bluehost because it gives the best WordPress tools for the lowest price.

If however you’re interested in having not only WordPress at your finger tips but also having that concierge feeling that people will do the techie work for you, then check out Bluehost’s Go Pro option. It’s not required, but a nice feeling, like upgrading rooms at a hotel.

Bottom line, for anyone just wanting to make a simple WordPress website or blog, the Basic Hosting is our #1 pick!

Please note – pricing is discounted further from August 15-end of August!

bluehost review us

Web Hosting FAQ: Bluehost and Beyond

This Bluehost review US just wouldn’t be complete without a collection of the most frequently asked web hosting UK reader questions we get. We’ve use layman’s terms and everyday English and answered all your FAQ here on this page so you don’t have to run around searching for answers.

a. What is the best web hosting for small business in the US?

If you were instead to ask which is the best web hosting for a small business, that may depend on where your current business connections and budgeting sits. Many web hosts have partnerships with other brands, for example HostGator has strong parternships with WordPress, Comodo, and Constant Contact, while Bluehost has a strong relationship with WordPress, SiteGuard, Joomla and Aweber.

You should consider all possible marketing opportunities that may arise from your host of choice, and place your web hosting payments in the right hands to position yourself for the most future success.

b. What is the best hosting for WordPress?

Another good question is which hosting is best for WordPress? To answer this question you need to look at availability of 1-click “script” (WordPress, Joomla, Magento, and more are all scripts among which there are about 400-500 available today) which can be installed in 1-click at the host so you don’t need to do any coding to get your website setup. However, all the best web hosting UK have this feature! So, you should look at cPanel strength, and also reviews from WordPress bloggers who might be further ahead of you.

c. Does a website even need hosting?

Every WordPress website and every website has to be hosted somewhere, and literally everyone we talked to is happy when they choose a a web host from our list above, as opposed to trying to survive on a free host. You may research the costs to setup a basic WordPress.org hosting, and get another big list of providers! But this is it, right here. The costs to setup a WordPress site are low these days. Even the small nominal cost of web hosting puts you on the same playing field as big names like Mashable, TechCrunch, ProBlogger and more right away, so nearly everyone considers it worth it (even if they wait too long, haha).

All of these web hosts also let you buy a domain name in the US too, and some even offer domain name discounts in the US.

d. How can I pick the best domain name?

How to pick a domain name can be a tricky task too. That’s why in every WordPress tutorial we make we feature not only how to setup web hosting cheaply but how to select the right domain name to match your business goals.

e. What’s the difference between web hosts?

Marketing gimmicks aside, the main differences you will see in web hosting providers in the USA are price, features, storage space, customer satisfaction, and support. We hope this article has provided some clear differences between web hosts, however doing a little more homework never hurts or asking your blogging friend next doors.

f. Can Google host a website?

Google has their own cloud hosting for small business and WordPress websites. The hosting is done by Compute Engine. You can try it free which is nice, the not so nice part is it’ll cost about nearly $25/month after your trial has ended. That’s just too much for a basic website, but, as it’s Google, you can expect this service to have premium support (haha!). You can also host a blog for free on .blogspot, the Google free blog hosting platform which is truly amazing, let’s you try Adsense and more. 

g. What is a web hosting platform?

A web hosting platform is most-commonly a group of servers, powered by several advanced softwares for maintenance, security and usability. You can find a web hosting platform at one of our best web hosting providers on this page, or on our international web hosting pages. Web hosting companies are judged based on price, quality of support, speed, user-friendliness and performance among other things.

h. What is the cheapest way to host a website?

The cheapest way to host a website is technically to do it yourself. You can download a software packet called WAMP and turn any laptop or home computer into a server. This type of setup won’t allow for high levels of traffic, it’s more just for testing out software you may be designing and other personal uses. If you host a website yourself for lots of traffic, you’ll need to invest in thousands of dollars worth of equipment. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart, but it’s still an option! After all, all these top US web hosting companies had to start somewhere!

i. Can I host my own website?

See above. You can from your own computer. However your long-term costs will be much lower and your traffic much happier if you choose a basic web hosting UK company, pay a few dollars per month, and you’ll still be able to say you “host it yourself” just with the help of a web host like the vast majority of us bloggers and web designers use.

j. What does it mean to host a website?

To host a website means to keep any type of website online for viewers on a daily basis while maintaining control of the hosting account.

k. How do I start a web hosting company?

You would first want to work for a web hosting company if you want to start a web hosting company. Common entry level jobs that would teach you the necessary skills are tech support, server security and server maintenance. From these positions, you will be able to network with the types of people who can guide you towards starting your own web hosting company.  Of course, you would also probably manage a few web hosting accounts (or a ton, like us) just to see what it feels like and build your own websites too!

 Bluehost Review US: Types of Web Hosting

As a leader in web hosting, Bluehost offers you every plan you’d expect, and a few that will just knock your socks off.

Shared Hosting: The cheapest and greatest hosting for small businesses. This hosting is where we all start. You get your own hosting space but the down side is it’s hosted alongside many other websites. But that’s okay you don’t see those sites ever. You basically get an apartment in a really nice building which is shared by others.

VPS Hosting: You get all the benefits of shared hosting, but you also get your own virtual private address as if you got a luxury unit aka an entire floor of the apartment building. This is a great happy medium of web hosting, generally faster than your average shared hosting. 

Dedicated Hosting: The big daddy of hosting, you get your own space on a virtual private dedicated server. You are the only person in the apartment building, and can literally dictate all the settings on your own, like the temperature and who is allowed in the entry way. It’s at least $1000/year, but it’s worth it for some big time bloggers and website owners for this utter peace of mind. Basically, you get a butler at your door every day asking you how you’d like your web hosting prepared, with 3 eggs and ketchup, steak, ham, or biscuits.

Cloud Hosting: Cloud is like one step above shared. It is a new and modern version of shared where the majority of your SSD is pushed to the cloud to optimize speed and reduce server usage. This plan is modern and flexible, it’s for the professional we designer who doesn’t want the pressure of a VSP but still wants that upgraded speed and control. 

Reseller Hosting: You basically become the host, you get a portion of the hosting space and are expected to sell it off to your own customers or perhaps employees of your company. Nowadays, the reseller method has become a bit out of date as you can simply host many websites on a basic shared plan and charge users as you wish. 

What's Next: Try Bluehost Today

And there you have it. While I could write forever about all the little things Bluehost does behind the curtains for us, I’d risk boring you to death. Bluehost has our recommendation (and WordPress’), try them out today, you won’t be disappointed!

Go with a Bluehost Web Hosting Plan, or click below to read more into our full review of US based web hosts.

Why Our Reviews Make a Difference

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If you were able to gather any useful advice about web hosting or have feedback for us to improve, feel free to leave a review.

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