This article, sort of a review, is about my personal experience of using Bluehost for hosting my WordPress websites and blogs. We will also look into Bluehost webmail (that is using bluehost email), Bluehost customer care support, its cpanel and walk you briefly through login through my.bluehost.com.
Ps. We have a recommendation of some of the best webhosting companies in Kenya.
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Brief History of Bluehost: The founders
Bluehost was founded in 2003 by Matt Heaton and Danny Ashworth. It hosts over 2 million websites globally. It offers shared hosting, coud hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting and Dedicated hosting. It servers are powered by PHP, NGINIX and HPPT/2
Hosting experience
I have used Bluehost for the last four years and haven’t really had any bad experiences but of course I want to be transparent with the company. Bluehost site load speed is terrible. For sites with thousands of files and high traffic you have to find a way of reducing load speed by the help of cache plugins, CDN and file compression tools othewise you will loose your readers. Google considers site page load speed as a ranking factor. But for small sites, Bluehost load speed is just fine.
You can check out one of my sites, muthurwa.com that is hosted on Bluehost.
Uptime
Most bloggers or companies are really concerned about up time when selecting a hosting company. Bluehost has some of the best uptime when you compare them to other big hosts like Godaddy. I have only had one of my websites hosted on blue host go down for 30 minutes. It was on a shared server and they explained to me what went wrong. That was reasonable.
Support
This is huge. You obviously want someone who’s going to give you good attention. I have some websites hosted on Godaddy and their customer support is terrible. Just check these consumeraffairs reviews.
With Bluehost. You don’t have to be worried about customer support. If you just click and open a live chat with them, someone pops up in minutes and handles your issues. They’re available 24/7 and will hold your hand until you know how to do something which is very nice of them.
Pricing
| Type of Hosting | Yearly Cost (Pricing) | Disk space | Bandwidth | |
|
Shared webhosting
|
1.) Basic
|
$ 59.40 | 50 GB | Unmetered |
| 2.) Plus
|
$89.40 | Unmetered | Unmetered | |
| 3.) Prime | $89.40 | Unmetered | Unmetered | |
|
Managed WordPress Hosting |
1.) WP Standard |
$359.88 |
30 GB |
100 million visitors monthly |
| 2.) WP Enhanced | $599.88 | 60 GB | 300 million visitors monthly | |
| 3.) WP Premium | $719.88 | 120 GB | 600 million visitors monthly | |
| 4.) WP ultimate | $839.88 | 240 GB | Unlimited Visitors | |
|
Woocommerce Hosting |
1.) Starter |
$179.40 |
100 GB |
Unmetered |
| 2.) Plus | $203.40 | Unmetered | Unmetered | |
| 3.) Pro | $251.40 | Unmetered | Unmetered | |
|
VPS Hosting |
1.) Standard |
$287.88 |
30 GB SSD (2 Cores) |
Unlimited |
| 2.) Enhanced | $503.88 | 60 GB SSD (2 Cores) | Unlimited | |
| 3.) Ultimate | $1007.88 |
120 GB SSD (4 Cores) |
Unlimited | |
|
Dedicated Hosting |
1.) Standard | $1199.88 | 500 GB (Mirrored) 4 Cores, 8 threads | 5 TB |
| 2.) Enhanced | $1439.88 | 1 TB (Mirrored) 4 Cores, 8 threads | 10TB | |
| 3.) Ultimate | $1679.88 | 1 TB (Mirrored) 4 Cores, 8 threads | 15 TB | |
| Cloud
Hosting |
1.) Starter | $131.40 | 100 GB | Unmetered |
| 2.) Performance | $191.40 | Unmetered | Unmetered | |
| 3.) Business Pro | $251.40 | Unmetered | Unmetered | |
|
Domain Registration
*Domain registration is free if you host your account with bluehost |
1.) .com | $11.99 | ||
| 2.) .org | $8.99 | |||
| 3.) .net | $.12.99 | |||
| 4.) .co | $12.99 | |||
| 5.) .co.uk | $11.99 | |||
| 6.) .org.uk | $11.99 | |||
NOTE: The above prices are without any offers. We are using normal prices because we want you to know how much you will pay without being enticed with offers.
If you are ready to get started with hosting visit: bluehost.com
WordPress review
When you pay for your bluehost hosting package you do get a free domain, a free site Builder and you can easily install WordPress with one-click through their cPanel and as you can see in the cpanel image below. They actually are the number one recommended hosting website by WordPress itself which is a big deal.
Cpanel
A lot of these hosting companies will have similar looking Cpanel. And alot of stuffs are pretty self-explanatory. You click this to get to your email account. To build a website you’re going to do click on WordPress and you can read a number of articles online on installing WordPress, getting started with it, customizing the theme and the design of your website.
Below is an image of how the cpanel looks like. After paying for your bluehost package. Login through my.bluehost.com. Click Cpanel to access it.
Webmail
There are two ways to access your webmail.
- The first approach is through typing into the browser address bar your domain, slash then webmail for instance; example.com/webmail
- The second approach is through sign-in through your cPanel. To access email through cpanel click email in the submenu. Locate the email address that you want to use. Click more to access you webmail. You can either use horde, roundcube or squirrel webmail clients.
NOTE: Email icon in your cpanel is available at the top menu bar or Check Webmail as illustrated in the image above..
The first approach is ideal if you want to create staff emails with your domain name but you don’t want them to access the cpanel.
Bluehost Contacts
- Facebook: Bluehost
- Twitter: Bluehost
- Live Chat: Help Chat
- Office Location: 10 Corporate Drive, Suite #300
- Phone contacts: +1 (855) 803-8156 or +1 (855) 803-8158 or +1 (855) 803-8155 or +1 (855) 803-8157
- Official Website: www.bluehost.com
You can share your bluehost hosting experience in the comment section or drop us an email.