BlueHost Review
I was excited to write a review about BlueHost, mainly because I’ve heard a lot of good things about them. With so many web hosts, and so few (good and honest) reviews, it’s really hard to tell who’s good and who isn’t.
From looking at the BlueHost.com web site, the company appears to be a serious and professional web host. A visually appealing web site, clearly posted contact information, lots of awards (from legitimate places), and grammatically correct text on site, all help make BlueHost seem like a formidable web host. A great feature (that seems to be awfully rare) is that BlueHost provides a demo of their control panel (a very slightly customized cPanel using the X skin) that actually works and isn’t impossible to find. It’s a great feature that allows you to review how cPanel works if you aren’t familiar with it.
BlueHost Features and Pricing
The features BlueHost provides seem pretty standard (nothing lacking) with all of the expected features of a web host such as cPanel, multiple database support, FTP, email, etc. BlueHost’s one (the only one I could find, at least) package features unlimited diskspace, and unlimited bandwidth. There’s a limited number of databases (50 each for MySQL and Postgre) and more FTP and email accounts than you could ever use (1,000 and 2500, respectively). Unlimited numbers of addon domains, parked domains, and subdomains are given. Pricing varies depending how long you sign up for:
- 3 Months: $9.95/month + $30.00 Setup + Domain ($10.00 if purchased from BlueHost)
- 6 Months: $8.95/month + $30.00 Setup + Domain ($10.00 if purchased from BlueHost)
- 12 Months: $7.95/month (no setup fee, free domain included)
- 24 Months: $6.95/month (no setup fee, free domain included)
I have never been a big fan of a minimum of three months contract, and you do have to click around (to the second step in their order process, actually) just to find out the price. Ignoring the minimum contract length, pricing is quite competitive.
Terms of Service
BlueHost has a very unique Terms of Service - there’s no legal jargon at all. It’s just some bullet points on a page with the major points included in most Terms of Service agreements. The shady point is “All activities may be monitored, recorded, and examined by any authorized person, including law enforcement.” with a semi-shady “Any violation found or fraudulent activity that system personnel deem inappropriate may have your account immediately terminated without notice and any recorded evidence reported to authorized persons.” However, in fairness to BlueHost, the points are quite clear, and not hidden within a 10 page agreement.
cPanel Control Panel
Two clicks later, I was into my control panel. If you know about cPanel, you can probably skip this paragraph. It’s all very standard. You have the same SQL, subdomain, email, etc. features as every other cPanel. There’s a few nice addons such as a domain manager, a sitebuilder, and some options to manage your account (basically, it just logs you into their billing system, but still convenient). BlueHost has Fantastico, which from what I saw, was up-to-date with the latest stable versions of all of the scripts. The cPanel went very fast and did everything it was supposed to do.
Script Installation
Like a lot of cPanel hosts, BlueHost supports addon domains. I set up a few addon domains, and everything worked well, and without any problems. BlueHost doesn’t allow SSH/Shell Access by default, but says it will enable shell access for your account if you fax a copy of your driver’s license, passport, etc. to them. I installed some basic scripts (a blog, a CMS, a forum) without any problems. Speed was about average, and BlueHost seems to keep up in terms of software updates and the like.
BlueHost Support
I called their support department using their toll-free number. I was talking to someone within about 30 seconds after dialing. I asked some basic questions: Do you support mod_rewrite (Yes), do you support mod_security (didn’t know, but checked), and do you keep your Fantastico up-to-date with the latest versions (Yes)? Support was nice enough, and keep to know what they were talking about. The representative obviously wasn’t reading from a prompt (no delay with answers).
I decided to test the BlueHost support out with some more complicated issues that an average webmaster may run across. I was caller #2, and had to wait about a minute or two. I spoke to a different representative (meaning they have more than one tech on duty, always nice) and asked does BlueHost support PHP5 (they have two servers that do, and can move your account if needed), if they support Ruby on Rails (nope), and if I should use ‘localhost’ as my host name with the script I was trying to install (Yes). I reworded the questions slightly and sent them to BlueHost support via email at 4:50 PM on a Monday. By 5:17 PM, I had a helpful response.
All and all, BlueHost seems like a good web host. The company certainly has their act together and by all means can be labelled as a top quality web host with great features and support.
Pros: Good control panel (cPanel) with a few nice extras, plenty of space and bandwidth, good support, fair pricing
Cons: Semi-shady points in TOS (nothing too major, and clearly outlined), 3 month minimum contract length, pricing is relatively hard to find
Bottomline: BlueHost is a good web host that provides a good hosting experience with a top-of-the-line control panel as well as helpful support for a reasonable price.
Rating: 
–Reviewed by Douglas Hanna
Visit BlueHost.com
December 5th, 2007
[...] HostMonster is actually owned by BlueHost, a large web hosting company which we reviewed a while back here at [...]
December 7th, 2007
As a fellow webmaster, i would advice all those registering their domains online to avoid netfirms.com - they are thieves. We had recently registered our domain on their site and with proof of purchase and a receipt later, we realized the domain has been sold to someone else half a day after our official purchase!
I would recommend many other domain providers, but that seem like i’m endorsing them, i merely conclude to beware when dealing with this India based IT institution.
Last word of advice, if they realize the worth of a domain after you have purchased it, they will revoke their claim and purchase it themselves, so that they can later resell it.
December 18th, 2007
Theses people shut my dad’s website down because he wanted them to fix a problem on there end. then kicked us off there server, i would say avoid these people like a plague because if they don’t like you they will kick you off there server. AVOID AVOID AVOID
and still havent refunded us the money that we paid them for the month
December 19th, 2007
I build websites for a living.
I have been using Bluehost for several years now.
They do give a lot of features for a good price.
Tech support had always been good in the past but recently has taken a dive. Dec. 2007
They “upgraded” their email servers and email went down for a day. I would think that an upgrade would be something that is planned so notice should be sent. But no notice was sent and customers email was not delivered.
Ok not a good practice. I was not informed till my customer asked why they where not recieving their email and I contacted Bluehost and got a canned answer that I could hardly give my customer.
I contacted them again for clarification and did not get any answer.
Having to deal with support issues myself I try to always be polite and to the point when dealing with any tech support personnel.
So have I made this assessment from one poor blunder?…no it seems a few of my last support questions have gone totally unanswered.
Which leads me to wonder if they are out growing their support.
I have to be proactive in insuring my current and future customers happiness.So I believe I am going to find a different hosting solution.
So far 1&1 seems to get high marks with some other web designers.
I am here posting just to help other designers not to slander Blue host. But I feel that for about the same money there are more professional hosting companies out there.
December 20th, 2007
I have been using Bluehost for about 2 years. I had to fight every single time I needed support. Every time they kept trying to convince me that the problem was in my applications. Almost every time they were wrong. Bluehost cannot be trusted for a serious business.
January 2nd, 2008
Service is aweful, price great, bandwidth great. I wouldn’t recommend them unless you have bandwidth options. Not reliable at all.
January 4th, 2008
To the poster above…avoid 1and1 internet. Short version story. They sent my account to a collection agency by “accident” and are now requiring me to pay the collection agency before they will unlock my website. I’ve sent proof of payment to 1and1 and the collection agency, and 1and2 still refuses to budge; they also are not willing to refund my money for services paid in advance. Bottom line…if they make a mistake…you pay!
January 11th, 2008
Hi,
Don’t believe any good news about bluehost! Here is my story:
I reserved with them almost a year ago. What i noticed first was that they are very slow and you should always beg to get a reply from them. . . then one day i received an email from them saying that they want to move my account to a new server (because they care about us and about our their service). The website(s) was blocked with 403 error. In the same email they said that the moving will need two or three days, but if the account was not activated within 2 days then contact us just in case.
That’s exactly what i did in two days. There was no reply by email, but a cold email saying that we should open a ticket.
I opened a ticket but again no reply. After a day, i tried to catch one of them on their said-to-be “live chat”, first i got someone from sales, then i got someone from technical who seemed to be working on the issue, but he cut the connection. I tried to connect again several times but with no reply!!!!!
I tried phone several times. I explained my problem, and the person on the other end was kind to look into it. He said that moving between servers take time!!! come on! it’s just 100G that can be moved with 10minutes between two servers!!!! and during all that time the websites and all the business is black! nobody can access the site and everybody is getting 403 error including myself. I can’t even access the control panel!!!!!
Five days passed and nothing, so i opened two other tickets and i was tyring to get more of their attention through live chat, but to no avail.
Now i quite up and i advise anybody NEVER WORK with BLUEHOST . They are not professional, and they are very tight on everything. . . don’t be tempted by the size and space they give. . . everything is tied up!!! you can’t do anything. Everything should be activated manually and after several emails: activate perl, activate ImageMagick, activate some commands. . .etc. Although I asked specifically for these things before i join them in and they said that everything is available to us!!!!!!!!
Try any other server but stay away from bluehost. Otherwise you will be loosing your money, your sites, your investment and your clients!!!
my 2 cents
forgot to add: everything i said here can be checked with me if you want the truth. My domain is free4mob.com and my email is Ramez.Bali (at) gmail (dot) com
January 13th, 2008
Hi I have been with them for 12 months now
And I have not had any trouble
John
Doctors Employment
doctorsemployment.com
January 16th, 2008
I went to the BlueHost website because they came highly recommended by Pandecta Magazine—what a bad experience! In an attempt to obtain clarification on several issues regarding their webhosting promotion, the person I was chatting with came off with a “major” brown-hole attitude before we even got through the first question. They obviously have no regard for customer service, which is a direct indication of poor management and an unprofessional business. I highly recommend anyone considering doing business with BlueHost to think twice—or maybe three times! Find a legitimate, professional hosting business that is geared toward your needs as a paying customer, not one that thinks they are doing you a favor. Bottom line: BlueHost is a joke and will probably be out of business soon due to lack of common sense.
January 21st, 2008
What are you guys on about? Many, many people have horror stories to tell about BlueHost:
1. http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=662557&highlight=bluehost
2. http://inetintegrity.com/weblog/?p=1
3. http://mattheaton.com/?p=115
Basically they oversell their servers and take some pretty unprofessional approaches to server upgrades. I’d recommend Site5 or Dreamhost to people looking for cost-effective but highly professional hosting.
January 21st, 2008
Interesting, MK. From reading those threads, it looks like BlueHost has been having “major problems” since late December because of an apache/php5 upgrade and load times. That, along with the insane number of new customers signing up (850 in one day) explains all the sudden negative comments about BlueHost posted here.
I am not a BlueHost apologist, but since Matt Heaton has publicly admitted the problems and taken responsibility, it seems reasonable to wait out the “growing pains” and see if things return to normal. My .02 worth.
February 6th, 2008
Thank goodness for these forums to release all the stress I have acquired from the poor support, management, and web development. I would have benefited more if I used the money I lost to blue host as toilet paper. If did not design the website and manual insert text and correct all the spelling mistakes, the website would not have gotten aware. It has been 7 months since my initial payment and the blue host website is still not online and has more problem as they pretend to email me saying that they performed work with no action really taken. If there was ever a hell on planet Earth, it would have originated from bluehost. It’s truly embarrassing to even be associated with bh. I wish there was redemption process to get back all the lost time and money and life they took from me.
February 8th, 2008
BH, are you saying that BlueHost was developing your site? I didn’t know that BlueHost offered web development services. In fact, I checked their site and cannot find any such product. To my knowledge, BlueHost only offers one product: a shared web hosting package. Perhaps you would be willing to explain in more detail what happened?
February 9th, 2008
Maybe I missed something (I don’t need tech support too often), but I have nothing but great things to say about BlueHost. The few times I’ve had to contact support they were really helpful AND they’re actually based in the US. No language barriers, no repeating yourself 29 times so some guy in India understands what you’re saying. I have no doubt that there are some issues, especially if they’re taking on new customers in such large volume, but I can honestly say I’d recommend them to anyone.
February 11th, 2008
My wesbite went offline for two hours (off peak time - no huge deal) but then at 11:30AM Sunday 2/10 it went down and is STILL DOWN almost 24 hours later.)
February 23rd, 2008
If Blue Host is such a wonderful web hosting site why is it grandecom.net has cut them off and won’t let them forward e-mail to my or wifes e-mail account?? We have had our web site @ Blue host for 2 years with very little problems except this one. We have not been able to resolve it in the last year. If this is the norm of things to come then the internet is doomed as any isp who takes a notion can cut another off.
February 23rd, 2008
Fred, did you ask grandecom.net why they blacklisted BlueHost?
February 29th, 2008
WOW! It seems, I am not alone. Get ready for this one folks. I am a BH customer with multiple websites being hosted under my main domain. I officially complained about my customer service issues with the BBB of Utah. Now that I have an active complaint online with them, BH has elected to terminate my web services without notice. Is this what you think an internet presence provider should do in response to negative reaction to their inept service department? Take note here and if you are considering using BH for your Internet Presence, take the time to consider it carfully.
February 29th, 2008
Jim, do you mind me asking the official reason that BlueHost gave you for terminating your web hosting account?
March 5th, 2008
I have three words to describe Bluehost. Unreliable, unreliable, unreliable.
Read about my horror with Bluehost at Bluehost Blues!
March 5th, 2008
I have been using Bluehost for awhile now and they have been great. Recently things have started to take a turn for the worst. Their support has been less helpful and certain sites that I have setup have been going down…with no notice or apology from Bluehost. I am now removing all my sites.
STAY AWAY FROM BLUEHOST!!!
March 6th, 2008
You can say what you want about BlueHost’s upgrade issues, but I have to hand it to the guys for sticking to their policy of not hosting pornographic sites. Be it for moral reasons or resource consumption, some people can sleep a little better knowing their files aren’t rubbing up against PeeWee Herman.
March 6th, 2008
Jonny, what was the reason BlueHost gave for your sites going down? Was it related to the problems discussed earlier in this thread? Please give some more details, thanks.
March 10th, 2008
Bluehost was okay for about 1.5 years as I used them. Unfortunately, they have no sense of planning or policy. We noticed this repeatedly with unannounced changes and a many times malfunctioning control panel.
They migrated our sites to a new server without telling us. Unfortunately, the new and the old didn’t match and they broke the sites. They cost us $900 for the developers to go back in and fix things.
Liquidweb is the better bet if you have the budget otherwise hostgator.
Spencer
March 14th, 2008
bluehost SUCKS, STAY AWAY FROM bluehost THE PLANS ARE FAKE, THEY WILL SUSPEND YOUR PAGE if you need even atlease 100mb bandwidth.
Bluehost = FAKEHOST
March 15th, 2008
LOL, BlueHost only offers 1 plan and it’s 15,000 GB bandwidth.
March 16th, 2008
Obviously the plan is fake, common thieves who overselling, 15,000 GB for sure its a fake value, especially in a shared hosting, fooling inexperienced webmasters, No one is going to use even the half of the space, and i bet if a client try to use even the 1/100 of the offered space, they will fix this using ether hidden charges, or limits-CPU usage etc, at the end, this is why there is a TOS/term, probably you will end up with a suspended account begging for refund.
March 16th, 2008
Great Review Douglas. I am amazed by some of these comments that some people still find a way to complain. For such a low price, Bluehost gives you so much with webhosting. My group has had our Bluehost account for 3 years now. And rarely do we have any issues. When we do, we just hop onto the online chat with the techies and they are usually very good at resolving our problems. Seriously, if you complain about Bluehost you are going to end up complaining about any service you have.
March 21st, 2008
Fastdomain also has the same address as that of bluehost. i guess bluehost, fastdomain and hostmonster are the same. why do they have to brand themselves into a lot of names?
March 21st, 2008
Jonee, I have read that BlueHost wanted Fastdomains because it is an official ICANN registrar. It makes sense to me because BlueHost and HostMonster are now able to go through the process of registration faster and easier without having to use a third party registrar.
March 27th, 2008
I am really glad I have found this BH despite all the support WordPress is throwing at them seems almost as bad as Dot5Hosting… 5 minutes to login, 8 to get a post page which only posts half the time after another 5 minutes or more… This was after they “fixed” their upgrade.
April 1st, 2008
@Emory Rowland concerning BHBASTERD comment about Bluehost and web development.
design.bluehost.com/design/
April 1st, 2008
Crazy Penguin, thanks for sharing that design page. It’s interesting that there is no link to that page from the bluehost.com main page. I wonder how they are promoting it?
April 13th, 2008
Personally I’ve been hosting my website (www.thisismyurl.com) with BlueHost for two years now and never had a problem with them, I think as with most aspects of life you get what you give.
April 14th, 2008
Emory, great comeback for Crazy, and notice if you will that BlueHost only recommends this service. It’s by http://www.edynamo.com
With a half a million domains, there are bound to be a few problems. You can’t avoid the statistics.
April 17th, 2008
@Chris I can see why you have “no problems” with Bluehost.
You are selling Bluehost at least through one of your sites. So does [potentially offensive link removed by editor] sound familiar to you. I see Bluehost banners in two places on the site.
What is funny to me is if type in your url thisismyurl.com you provided in the above comment at serverstatus.bluehost.com it tells all kinds of history about what is going on with you at Bluehost.
If you are a shill or an affiliate either way you are biased on what you are promoting from you point of view concerning your comment.
April 19th, 2008
They oversell. If you need more space, they shift you to a new server, resulting in downtime and may be data loss too …
Jacob C [1:15:52 PM]: Welcome to our real-time Sales chat. How can I help you today?
rick [1:18:20 PM]: are you real ?
[1:18:35 PM]: type rick
[1:19:22 PM]: no one ?
Jacob C [1:20:51 PM]: Rick
[1:20:59 PM]: Yes I am real, how may I help you?
rick [1:21:15 PM]: ohh great
[1:21:17 PM]: thanx ..
[1:21:24 PM]: I need hosting ..
[1:21:55 PM]: before i buy your hosting .. i need to know few things
Jacob C [1:22:31 PM]: Ok
rick [1:22:38 PM]: what is your server configuration ?
Jacob C [1:23:24 PM]: Linux servers running Apache 2.2.8, CentOS 4.6, OC-48 backbone, PHP 5.2.5, Python 2.4.3, Ruby 2.0.1(Rails 2.0.2), Perl 5.8.8
rick [1:23:48 PM]: hardware configuration ?
Jacob C [1:26:20 PM]: OUr servers have dual Quad Core CPUs with 8GBs of RAM and RAID Redundency.
rick [1:27:01 PM]: and what is the HDD capacity and how many HDD’s to 1 server ?
Jacob C [1:28:39 PM]: I am not sure, I believe that the servers have 8 HDDs per server.
rick [1:28:58 PM]: Do you oversell ?
Jacob C [1:30:26 PM]: We do not allot the 1.5TBs upfront, but if you need the space then we will give it to you.
[1:30:37 PM]: So no, we do not oversell.
rick [1:32:03 PM]: So if i signup now and in 6 months i start using the actual space .. i.e 1.5 TB or less … what will happen ?
[1:32:16 PM]: Will I be shifted to new servers ?
Jacob C [1:32:42 PM]: Yes you could be migrated to a different server.
rick [1:33:05 PM]: so there will be downtime .. and may be data loss …
Jacob C [1:33:46 PM]: Yes there could be downtime, but we will try to schedule the migration with you.
rick [1:34:09 PM]: so initially how much space do you allot?
Jacob C [1:35:42 PM]: I am not sure, but the space would dynamically expand.
rick [1:36:07 PM]: Can you find out ?
Jacob C [1:36:46 PM]: No I can not.
rick [1:38:06 PM]: You mean to say … you have no idea how much space will be provided ?
Jacob C [1:39:10 PM]: I mean to say that you will not have to worry about the space, we are building brand new servers everyday and so you will not have to worry about aging hardware or cramped servers.
rick [1:41:19 PM]: the reason to ask for the space details is that I currently host a video blog website. I needed to know how much space would be provided to me. My current website is about 750 GB
Jacob C [1:42:36 PM]: You will be given 1500GBs. You will not need to worry about the space on the server.
[1:43:16 PM]: If the idea of the disk space dynamically expanding worries you then you may need to look into VPS or a dedicated server.
[1:46:57 PM]: Is there anything else I may assist you with?
[1:47:52 PM]: It appears you are having difficulty responding, please feel free to open another chat anytime if you have further questions. Have a great day!
April 23rd, 2008
I dont recomend blue host. about 2 weeks after buying the 2 year package i was contacted by my building socity (Bank) Fraud sqad and was told that the company tried to put a compromise on my account, not sure what it ment i asked, they told me if Bluehost had lifted any money after taking just £1:00 they would be able to clear out my accound without a trace, so i give bluehost 2 stars, Why you ask, because my bank has closed my account and created me a new one with full money back and i still have my account at bluehost
they must have overlooked it, What a bunch of ejits 
April 29th, 2008
Despite plenty of reviews suggesting I should look elsewhere for a webhost, I plumped for Bluehost.
So far, I am very impressed with the service. After updating my DNS settings with my old Lycos package, my website was up and running within a couple of hours, with excellent download speeds.
Good stats and logging facilities too.
June 6th, 2008
We’ve been with Bluehost for over a year now, and I’ve had accounts with them dating back 3 years. I’ve really run the gambit with this lot. At first Bluehost was a fairly responsive and quality host, however those days are long gone. As it began to grow it fell apart? Especially in customer service, which Bluehost fails so miserably at, they don’t even have a customer service department. You end up dealing with their hit or miss tech support or sales, which love you when you sign up, see you as a burden there after. They’re the kind of company that leaves you for 30 minutes on hold if you call looking for someone to talk to that even remotely cares that their mistakes and poor management cost you money. Particular mistakes include unannounced changes to the backend hosting software which rendered the site unusable for over a week, frequent slowdown or flat out downtime and failure to notify us of payment for essential services that crippled the site and sent customers elsewhere. They can send me a dozen emails through out the year trying to trick me into renewing my domains through them, however they fail to properly notify us that one of the entire accounts was up for renewal and shut it down until the issue was straightened out.
It sounds like a bad case of poor management and excessive cost-cutting.
If you have a cheap website that isn’t reliant on backend scripting, or uptime, then Bluehost is for you. It’s cheap and has all the basic features, with a few frills as well. Otherwise, don’t say you haven’t been warned. In our case we have easily lost more money tenfold than it would have cost to get a superior hosting service.
June 14th, 2008
Bluehost are the best webhost I have ever used.
I have used 1&1, nativespace, fasthosts and easyspace.
They are superb in everything. Right now one of the support guys is sorting some php that is playing about for me.
There technical support is very good. Servers are very fast and price is amazing.
Bluehost is the best!
July 7th, 2008
I also have used bluehost for several years and have had relatively no problems. I have had some recently, but they have been resolved rather quickly.
Yes, Crazy penguin, I also advertise bh on my site. Hey, they pay a nice referral, so why not. But your logic is interesting: If you like bluehost, then you are obviously lying, if you hate them or have lots of problems, you are telling the truth. According to you, the only way my recommendation can be taken seriously is if I admit to having lots of problems and decry their horrible services. Sounds like a poisoning of the wells fallacy to me.
So the truth: I have had problems (none as bad as some claim), and for the price I am willing to put up with the growing pains. For me, two years of service, to only now have some issues, still works for me.
July 7th, 2008
I have been many years with bluehost. I’ve had a few problems, but they’ve been resolved. If you want cheap hosting, you truly get more than you pay for, for Bluehost. However, if you run a business and consider that you’re only paying $84/year for all the features listed, it’s likely that you’re not understanding the importance of your website. If you need “don’t screw around” service, you’ll want to go to something that charges more and guarantees more.
If you’re a business, and the difference between $8/month and $80/month is a dealbreaker for your web based business, you’re in the wrong business, and even if Bluehost makes monetary sense for you, you shouldn’t expect world class technical support for a year’s worth of BH for a month’s charge at another provider, though you might get it.
OTOH, it’s a lot of space to host your stuff. It certainly is a lot cheaper than S3 for backing up.
July 7th, 2008
Gerald, exactly my point (except you said it a lot better).
It seems that from what I have seen, even paying $20-$25 per month gets you…well…about $13 poorer when compared to bluehost. If you want a lot of space and bandwidth, and are willing to put up with some headaches here and there, then a host like bluehost is the way to go. But if you want guaranteed no problems (whatever that means) you better be ready to fork out the dough. Honestly, for me, I would probably buy a server and pay to collocated it. But that’s just me.
July 10th, 2008
I was a very early user of Bluehost, and back then it seemed like they were totally dedicated to good service.
But several weeks ago, my site’s SQL database simply disappeared from their server (I’d heard they were having database issue.)
Worse still, when I put in a support ticket, I got told that none of the “daily, weekly, and monthly” backups promised by their sales pages actually existed!
Oh, and the Level 3 tech told me that the missing backups were not actual features of their hosting service, but were merely a “courtesy” provided by Bluehost!
Needless to say, an email to owner Matt Heaton — who used to be involved with the actual operation of the company — went unreplied-to.
Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
July 10th, 2008
Joel, I am really sorry to hear that happened. Perhaps you can retrieve your content from the Google cache while it is still there?
The BlueHost.com site states that “courtesy backups” are part of “features included” in all accounts. Perhaps someone from BlueHost could respond?
July 11th, 2008
Joel, that’s a real bummer! I asked them once about backups because I thought, like you, they did regular backups and could restore if needed. From what I understood, they backup the system, but not individual user accounts. I am not sure what “Courtesy Site Backups” is suppose to mean. I didn’t pursue it, mostly because the c-panel offers a backup feature. For the company sites I run, I have perl scripts I have written to do backups of the web directory and the databases automatically using cron.
Honestly, even if a company doing virtual hosting does say they make backups, I have learned in the past that when it comes to volatile data, you can never have enough backups.
I’m writing bluehost to ask about their backup policies.
b–
July 11th, 2008
O.k., found this in the knowledge base:
BlueHost does not offer redundant or mirrored backups. BlueHost will run courtesy backups at our discretion. Any backups that BlueHost runs are in addition to our Terms of Service and are not guaranteed. Customers are encouraged to run periodic backups through the provided cPanel. BlueHost reccomends that you store such backups off site on your local sysetm.
If you need help creating an account backup; please see our article on How do I use the Backup utility?
*Important: Bluehost.com assumes no responsibility for failed backups, lost data, or data integrity. Bluehost.com is unable to provide copies or create automatic backups for sites above 4 gigabytes in size. You may create your own copies using SSH/Shell Access. If you need help using SSH/Shell Access please see our article on SSH Commands
To learn how to enable shell access on your account please consult this knowledge base article: How can I get SSH/Shell access on my account?.
By courtesy backup I believe they are saying that they will do a backup if you ask them to or if they are moving you to another server, etc. They need to word that on the front page differently. But in all fairness, if they were talking about “nightly backups of user accounts”, they would have said that.
In the end, I guess it pays to read the TOS…which I never did. Ooops.
July 20th, 2008
Well this is all a surprise to me. I’ve read the majority of comments, and I’m shocked by a lot of the responses. I’ve been with BlueHost for several months; no problems yet.
Since I’ve only been with them for a small period of time I’m not going to jump to conclusions and slap them with a poorly though out opinion.
What I can say is: so far, so good, everything has been great.
July 23rd, 2008
i like bluehost. but their is one problem that is they dont provide catch-all account & ffmpeg … you cant even install on it coz the dont even give access to shell to.
July 24th, 2008
@Emory (comment #34):
Looks like they promote it within their control panel; see the sample cPanel site under the “Partners” section: http://69.89.30.141:2082/frontend/bluehost/index.html.
July 28th, 2008
I have been with Bluehost for over two years and have 3 accounts with them. I have never had any problems with them. I get great tech support. Yesterday they even worked on a script for me that they don’t support. I have another account with Godaddy and have had problems with them so I am moving my sites from there over to Bluehost. I have had web sites for over 10 years hosted with various companies and so far Bluehost has been the best.
July 31st, 2008
I must say I’m a little surprised at how many people there are in the world that expect 100% from a web host. Granted it would be even more surprising if people took time to say something they liked about a company versus what they despise…
After all that’s what the internet is for, flaming & venting. You’d be hard pressed to find a person who wants to take 5 mins out of their life to write something they like about a company.
However… I’m going to say what I like about the service because I’m apposed to whiny people:
-Tech Support is based in the US (Hmmm, an American company providing jobs to American Citizens) and this means I will understand what the tech is telling me.
-Their cPanel is easier to use then any other company I’ve done business with.
-Even though it’s not their job to help with my script they have taken the time to look at mine time and time again.
-Every person I have talked with has been very kind and patient with me. (Then again I don’t start the conversation like a hot headed 4 year old)
….Just a side note, it’s shared hosting (and the best from what I’ve seen). You are paying very little for what they provide. Yes they may experience some downtime, here’s a newsflash though for some of you who still remember changing the tv stations with a dial on the tv: It’s Technology! Nothing created yet has lasted forever without some kind of maintenance!….
I see a lot of reviews from people flaming Bluehost because they don’t send out emails informing their clients of server maintenance… ARE YOU SERIOUS!? They are to just send 500,000+ emails out to clients for 1-2 hour maintenance? Yeah I’m sure that would be great on a mail server (insert sarcastic expression here).
“Boo hoo my business was down for 3 hours” <— I’m sorry that your office in your mom’s basement had to stop for 3 hours. If you are paying $8 a month for web hosting then there is no way you are a corporation that’s going to be hit hard for the missed time. If you want to have some control over that then fork out the several thousand dollars for your own server and get yourself a T3 line… Option 2 would be for you to realize how good you’ve got it for the amount you are paying. Go ahead and ask MTV how much it costs to keep their site up per month and then get on some random review page to betch about your hosting.
Overall the 2 years I have been with Bluehost have been a rewarding experience and I will be with them for a long time.
August 1st, 2008
I would recommend Bluehost to those who know what they are doing. I’ve been using them for the last few years now and they’ve been great. I’m a web designer and I’ve been through a few other hosting companies so I know what I’m talking about. But then again, every other hosting companies has their complaints. You win some… you lose some!!!
Good Luck To all!!!
August 10th, 2008
Signed up with Bluehost, I’m already dissapointed. Site constantly lags. It was down last weekend for over an hour. Customer support so far has been good as far as the live chat goes. Site was lagging real bad just a bit ago and that’s when i decided to do a search for bluehost reviews and I found this. Wish i’d a done this before i bought the years hosting…. Bad so far.
August 10th, 2008
I must ad, just because you pay little for a service doesn’t mean you shouldn’t expect good service….
August 10th, 2008
I checked all my sites on Bluehost when I got the message about a site lagging. I had no trouble at all. Also, someone mentioned that if someone used 1/100 amount of space they would probably try to charge you extra. Well I use several GIGs of space and I have yet to have any problems no extra costs, etc and again they still have great support on the phone and with live chat.
August 12th, 2008
Grim performance. Page loads at night >> 30 seconds.
User support dreadful and unresponsive. Avoid these
clowns at all costs. They were a big mistake and now
I’m stuck.
August 14th, 2008
I’ve been happy with Bluehost for the most part until recently. The tech support has been pretty knowledgeable and helpful. About a month ago, their mail server went down so we lost a whole day of email communication. The mails seem to come back the next day. However, yesterday, the mail server went down again but this time despite my calls to their tech support, they said all mails from yesterday were lost and there was nothing they could do about it! The only thing they could say is if you need a dedicated server, you may want to consider another service. Also, I filed a ticket with them to take a look at my Awstat for my main domain a month ago because it ceased doing updates. It also never got taken care of. So while the service is generally okay, there are pitfalls going with them. I encourage you to consider other services.
August 29th, 2008
This is by far the worst hosting company ive dealt with in 15 years. The support is a 0 on a scale of 1-10.. Yes they are that bad, ive called 3 times in the last 2 days and I get hung up on? Ive emailed there support many times trying to resolve a problem and no response or I get an email saying to look at the forum and I should find the answer?? What kind of business does this, absolutely horrible customer support I would not recommend them to anyone! There are many more hosting companys that will actually do something to help.
Bottom line there the worst hosting and have the worst support on the net.
August 29th, 2008
Hoss, that’s surprising that a host would hang up on you. Was it during a heated discussion or more of a got disconnected type of thing?
August 31st, 2008
I’m sorry. What part of this article is a review? You did a fine job listing the service’s features, but one could have read that for themselves at Bluehost. I did notice that the Bluehost.com link tracks clicks… good job advertising.
September 1st, 2008
Mark, I think you stopped reading after the feature list and hurried to lump us in with the many so called review sites that exist only to make affiliate revenue. If I wanted, Clickfire could be nothing but a promotional
showcase for web hosting affiliates and I’d be a lot richer. We’ve chosen a contrary route, one which sometimes
annoys the hosting companies, but one that I feel adds value for the readers.
Here’s how web host reviews typically work here:
First, I sign up for an account with a web host.
Once the service is active, I contact an independent reviewer and negociate a price for the review. Yes we pay web host reviewers, but they have to meet a our critieria such as having Web hosting industry experience, hands on hosting skills, critical abilities and not having an affiliation with the host being reviewed.
Once we agree on the price, I send the login info and the reviewer begins to evaluate the host. Usually, the reviewer looks first at the control panel and tries to assess how it stands up for usability.
Then he starts installing CMS scripts and working with files to test functionality and speed.
The reviewers can look at any feature or aspect of a host that they want and be as critical as they want. For example, some reviewers look within the fine print of the terms of service, a favorite hiding place for policies that can affect buying decisions and harm consumers.
Next, the web host reviewer contacts the host directly without the host knowing that they are being reviewed. I ask all reviewers to do this because hosting support is a such an big issue with webmasters. The reviewer reports on all this and gives Clickfire readers his assessment based on his personal experience–key point here.
Each reviewer is required to list specifically what he believes are the pros, cons and bottom line based on what he has seen.
Finally the reviewer is required to give his rating of between 1 and 5 stars.
If the host has an affiliate program, I usually install their referral code to recoup expenses (signup, paying the reviewer) and hopefully make a profit.
The whole review process from start to finish can take several months, but it’s worth it. I believe the readers can take away something of value that helps them make the right decision as consumers. The best hosts get new customers. I earn money to review more hosts and develop other content areas on Clickfire which are less monetizeable but more fun.
September 4th, 2008
And i was really about to pay for a few years for hosting to bluehost… thanks for the reviews guys!
@MK: Thanks for the recommendation! I think i will go with Site5.
Cheers!
September 5th, 2008
Well, I did have some problems with one of our sites going down. It only seemed to happen on one server, the rest never seem to have a problem. I filled out a ticket and got a response. I wrote back and forth with the tech people, even into the weekend, trying to figure out what was going on. Frankly, shared hosting makes it extremely difficult to track this stuff down.
In the end they said they would try a few things and keep an eye on it, requesting I do the same and let them know as soon as the problem happens again.
Yeah, I know what some of you are thinking, “They just couldn’t flip a switch and fix it? What a bunch of losers!” But as someone who manages a network and does a lot of software development, sometimes those stupid switches are hard to find.
Some of the stories I am hearing I cannot even begin to identify with. After almost three years, I have always gotten responses, I have always gotten through on the phone, and I have always gotten treated kindly and with respect. Of course, I usually treat the techs the same way…maybe that’s where the difference is?
September 5th, 2008
In response to Mark,
It is obviously a review. I am not exactly sure how you missed it. There are even stars indicating the final opinion of the reviewer.
I find it extremely helpful to have someone walk through the process, letting me know what their professional opinions are as well as their “feelings” during the process. I would call that a “review”.
The only draw back is that you can never get a clear long-term picture of the service. That is where some of the user comments come in handy. But then, they aren’t usually as professional as the review.
September 5th, 2008
To DreadKnight,
webhostingjury.com/reviews/Site5
You are still going to get what you paid for. You want super reliable, never down, fast service, then you want dedicated servers and that is going to cost you a lot more then $5 a month.
Honestly, I would only recommend shared hosting to people who either want to host personal sites, blogs or (perhaps) small businesses, or who have a high level of expertise and patience and are willing and able to work through the bumps in the road.
If you have a business site that you absolutely MUST have up all the time, then either you need to know what you are doing, or you need to rent space on a dedicated server.
For the average user and small business, shared hosting should work fine (and bluehost is better then most).
September 5th, 2008
Bluehost tech support is lazy and uninformed, and they constantly try to upsell you services.
Their SpamAssassin doesn’t work, they admit it, but they won’t troubleshoot the problem (I don’t think they know how to look at a server log, or rather, don’t give a damn).
They only offer SSL on the top-level domain (fraud on their homepage). And then they lie and say you need to buy the cert from them (others are cheaper). Etc, blah, blah.
Good for basic hosting, but anything fancy, they are stupid and really annoying. They spend more time arguing about things they clearly don’t understand in an apparent effort to avoid doing work, when just shutting up and doing the work in the first place would take less time.
September 6th, 2008
Sorry, but I’m just with the objectivity of this review. Granted, my own experience was bad, and the problems I experienced may have been limited to the server I was assigned to (shared hosting), but there just isn’t a lot of depth to this review. Downtime is a significant issue.
September 6th, 2008
I’m definitely up for adding depth if you want to recommend something specific. I do agree that more uptime/downtime stats could help. If there was any downtime, it would have been mentioned and certainly BlueHost would not have received a rare 5 star rating.
September 6th, 2008
I have a monitoring service that monitors some of my web sites on bluehost and the last notice I got was on 12/13/07. They went down at 4:13 am and came back up at 5:14 am. The last time before that was in August 2006. I think that is pretty good.
September 12th, 2008
Well, I found this site while trying to find any kind of notice of what’s going on at Bluehost today. (Friday, 9/12/08 at 1:30 PM CST) Seems they’re down for the count right now. Can’t access my websites or my account. I used BH in the past and they were always great; that’s why I went back to them when I decided to start developing once more. Now I’m wondering if I made the right choice. Will see….
September 12th, 2008
Just to warn everyone: I just went through a terrible experience with Bluehost.
I used only 200 Gb of their promised ‘unlimited storage’. But still they deactivated my account in a crude fashion. After whole a day of tiresome mailing with customer support, they gave short and unfriendly answers, using any reason to hide that they wouldn’t give me the storage i paid for.
Eventually I convinced them to do the right thing and activate my account again. In no time of course i got a 2nd blunt, short mail saying “your account has outgrown us”. What a difference with my current host (DH), where they contact people first to find a solution/upgrade together, instead of immediately kicking out a customer.
- Please, do NOT believe Bluehost’s unlimited storage promise!!
- And please do NOT expect customer support to treat you as a human being either… You’re just a number to them, and they’ll shoot first and ask questions later.
September 13th, 2008
I was about to move my websites to Bluehost because I have nothing but trouble with Superbhosting (shared hosting server down for more than 24 hours - the second times this happens this year!). Thanks for the reviews. I was about to make a mistake again. In short: avoid Bluehost and avoid Superbosting.
September 13th, 2008
Chris, what turned you off about BlueHost, reviews or perhaps something else?
September 13th, 2008
Y,
Mind me asking “What” you were storing that took up 200gb? I do remember the EULA mentioning something about “legitimate” use of the space. Not really sure what that means. But you are correct, “unlimited” = gimmick. Perhaps that is one of those areas of advertisement that should be investigated. More and more companies are using that line and, like a politician promising tax reform and lower job outsourcing to overseas, I have a hard time believing the hype.
b–
September 23rd, 2008
Run and don’t look back. This host has gone to the dumps. I have had a site that has been down for 90% of the time for 14 days straight and they will not move me to a new server or fix the problem. This is ridiculous and I hope everyone reads this and pays attention.
There are to many hosts out there and this one is turning into nothing but a money machine and they have forgotten all about the customers who got them to where they are. Hopefully the same customers will bring them back down.
September 28th, 2008
BlueHost, FastDomain, and HostMonster are three companies that belong to the same owners. They all provide the same services, are maintained by the same personnel, and share the same infrastructure. However, their marketing strategies are separate. BlueHost and HostMonster are web hosting companies only, while FastDomain is a web hosting and a registrar company.
October 1st, 2008
AVOID BLUEHOST LIKE THE PLAGUE
My service with them was reasonable up until recently when decided to consolidate the server hosting my sites with another server. Since then, email and web for all my sites has gone offline daily, for hours at a time.
Tech support takes hours to a full day to respond, if they respond.
I’ve now been told the 99.9% SLA does not apply to individual servers or accounts, but only to the entire infrastructure of BlueHost.
STAY AWAY
Go to another host. You get what you pay for.
October 7th, 2008
I think Bluehost is a very proficient web hosting provider in the shared web hosting world. And the cost is very affordable as well.
October 14th, 2008
Works OK but if you have problem they are robots. We had backup files saved there, for long time. When they found out that they were “PERSONAL FILES” not WEB files they shut us down instantly and were impossible to deal with to fix the problem. We begged for 12 hours to fix the problem but would not budge. Took us 24 hours to download and delete. I even tried to pay 1000 bucks offer to give us the time. NOPE.. I am moving to GoDaddy,, GoDaddy laughed at what they did to us.