Like the other popular web hosting companies, Bluehost started offering great services for years, but now, they have fully optimized servers for WordPress. So, they make settings and the caching system works better, however, beginners found things confusing and even more, bloggers who just started thinking about launching their new blogs found themselves in the need to compare companies to find the best one as lots of fake reviews are published on social media and on other sites.
In today’s guide, I’ll make things easy for you, and I’ll show you the difference between the Bluehost WordPress hosting and other services and if Bluehost is really worth it or it’s just another cheap web host to stay away from.
The truth about Bluehost WordPress hosting
Bluehost is a web hosting company that offers shared, VPS, and dedicated plans, and when you look further, you’ll conclude that it’s no longer that kind of exceptional web host that bloggers still talk about just to make some money when recommending them. In fact, Bluehost has become slower than other shared web hosts with lower quality services, even their VS plans have nothing to do with what people say like security, reliability, preferences, etc…especially if you know nothing about server management and Linux codes.
That’s not valid anymore, and if you’re looking for that type of fully managed web hosting for WordPress, and forget all the problems with speed, security, and management, then, only WP Engine and LiquidWeb can do that for you, they have super-fast servers, dedicated in-house customer departments and the right tools for WordPress including free premium themes and plugins.
Now, let’s talk about Bluehost and its features in the early years of the company launch to understand why bloggers recommended their services years ago, which is not accurate now.
Can you host multiple WordPress sites?
When it comes to reality, hosting multiple WordPress sites with Bluehost shared hosting is a pain for you, there is no way to get fast sites without purchasing separately managed plans for each install. That costs lots of money compared to other service providers with cheaper plans and the same resources.
The fact that Bluehost is recommended by WordPress is not, on its own, a sign of quality, nor it’s a sign of security, it’s just a cooperation between the two companies and they work together and of course, that’s not free when a company recommends another one for its uses. So, forget everything about quality, Bluehost for the shared hosting is not better than other web hosts owned by the same company like HostGator, but, that’s an old story of recommendations that blogger used to believe in the early 2007 or so.
Bluehost WordPress hosting vs WP Engine
Of course, the majority of people know that WPEngine has been the only fully managed WordPress hosting for years, but, they forget that they’re not offering email hosting, and you can only host a single website for the first plan. If you need more, you should choose other plans that cost lots of money.
That may look like a negative point as there are no emails offered, when, in reality, it’s a sign of real performance, when you dedicate all the server resources to hosting, everything will be fine without email spam issues that can easily affect the performance of any server.
When you compare all that with Bluehost, things can look different. For example, Bluehost offers more services with large resources, and cheaper prices and that’s what makes things easier for many. It’s not the same speed or loading time, but it works well.
Unlike any other hosting, the Bluehost plans come with 30GB of disk storage and the same space for your website backups that happens automatically. Also, the minimum dedicated RAM is 2GB and you can get up to 8 GB if you want the larger plans. That lets people get more resources and speed, but, at cheaper prices compared to competitors.
I want to add that this is not the old server and infrastructure that the company used for shared hosting. It’s a brand new infrastructure with powerful resources and optimized configuration, that speeds up WordPress and reduce the number of HTTP requests that the software uses.
The result is that the blog will work without issues or at least with fewer problems compared to the shared plans, best of all, you can host the same site including its emails and there is no need to look for other services.
Easy cPanel and lots of optimization
Unlike other managed web hosting services for WordPress, Bluehost is easy, and even, a child can use the cPanel. No more coding and other things that complicate life. Just login to your simple to use cPanel and manage the files, and everything you need from one place.
For those who look for speed, the site hosting comes with a CDN service, that serves your blog static assets from the nearest location to your visitors. That helps the server to work better, and it will save lots of bandwidth and make the user experience better.
Even, you can host up to 5 blogs for the first plan, however, if you have more blogs, then, use other plans that suit your business needs. But in general, they offer more resources, more websites that you can host, and that’s what few companies can offer at that great price years ago.
The advanced NGINX infrastructure and the integration of the W3 Total Cache plugin work well and reduce the server response time. There is no need to add extra tools about security in the server itself, there is the SiteLock protection, and the firewall detects every attempt of attacks or unnatural traffic. That being said, you should never count on these tools, they may not always protect your blog and many thousands of sites got hacked even with these tools.
The instant RAM or storage upgrade option is what will save you lots of time and money, in one click, people can add more RAM if their sites need that, and they can add more disk storage also. It’s a combination of powerful VPS hosting and a fully managed and optimized service that every business owner and professional WordPress user needs.
Using the Bluehost WordPress hosting is recommended for all, on the other side, if you have a new blog without any traffic and you can manage all the hosting settings and options yourself, then, you can just use the shared hosting that they offer, and that will save you money.
Later, when you see that your blog receives lots of traffic and it needs a managed hosting, you can upgrade, and ask them to help you at that stage.
For help, Bluehost offers chat and phone support, but guess what? It’s no in-house support, they hire customer assistance from different countries to help their users. And of course, you may find yourself not able to explain even what the issue is, that’s because the assistant is not taking your problem seriously or at least, he or she can’t feel your pain, only expert engineers can see the real problems and fix them, and unfortunately, it’s not the case with Bluehost.
Conclusion
There are many services that offer WordPress managed hosting, but, when it comes to resources and good price, Bluehost is not the best, WP Engine offers faster hosting that’s more secure and if you take into consideration the investment you put into such a high-quality service, you’ll save your site from hacks, and get everything better than any other web host. They have a simple billing system without complicated options and other things.
