Bluehost Review 2024 – Do I Recommend Them?
Bluehost Review Summary
Bluehost is not a great but decent choice of web hosting to get started. Based on our test, the Bluehost site showed good performance and a free domain name is an excellent cost-saver for beginners. Compared to last year’s test data, Bluehost has truly improved its TTFB and uptime. Their Global TTFB is not the best, but still, a clear improvement is seen, and it competes with many new-age hosting services now.
Bluehost Pros
Bluehost Cons
Starts at $2.95/month
Bluehost Performance
Server Response Time
The Bluehost TTFB server response time is 409 ms, as recorded through our Pingdom tool. This is a decent server response time and better than HostGator, which is also part of the same EIG hosting.
Last 12 months average speed of Bluehost:
- October 2024 average TTFB: 432 ms
- September 2024 average TTFB: 447 ms
- August 2024 average TTFB: 488 ms
- July 2024 average TTFB: 468 ms
- June 2024 average TTFB: 494 ms
- May 2024 average TTFB: 466 ms
- April 2024 average TTFB: 456 ms
- March 2024 average TTFB: 463 ms
- February 2024 average TTFB: 454 ms
- January 2024 average TTFB: 476 ms
- December 2023 average TTFB: 426 ms
- November 2023 average TTFB: 441 ms
Uptime
The Bluehost uptime is recorded at 99.95%, a below-average score among other hosting providers we’ve tested.
Last 12 months average uptime of Bluehost:
- September 2024 average uptime: 100%
- September 2024 average uptime: 99.97%
- August 2024 average uptime: 100%
- July 2024 average uptime: 99.92%
- June 2024 average uptime: 99.94%
- May 2024 average uptime: 100%
- April 2024 average uptime: 99.99%
- March 2024 average uptime: 100%
- February 2024 average uptime: 99.88%
- January 2024 average uptime: 99.99%
- December 2023 average uptime: 99.98%
- November 2023 average uptime: 100%
Load Testing
I performed Load Testing on my Bluehost site by sending 500 concurrent traffic, and the site recorded an average response time of 438 ms.
The test failed at midway with many time out and 500 errors. The server handled the load for first 30 seconds but later failed.
Global TTFB
Bluehost test site recorded an average TTFB of 597 ms.
Core Web Vitals
I have been consistently testing the Core Web Vitals of my Bluehost site. According to the last test results, my site recorded a ‘Largest Contentful Paint’ of 461 ms, a ‘Total Blocking Time’ of 0 ms, and a ‘Cumulative Layout Shift:’ of 0.07.
Going by the results, Bluehost may not have the best Core Web Vitals, but again it’s not even that bad, and with a bit of effort, sites can deliver a brilliant user experience to their visitors.
Cloudways Features and its Reviews
1. CDN
Bluehost’s free Cloudflare CDN offering has been available for years, and Argo Routing is the latest addition to its tech stacks. The settings can be found under the Speed tab on the Bluehost dashboard. I enabled it and watched the data for three months.
Surprisingly, there is no single percentage improvement in Bluehost’s TTFB or Core Web Vitals scores.
It doesn’t surprise me because I used Argo Routing two years back, and it did nothing to my site, which I have recorded in this case study.
Don’t expect a significant performance improvement with Cloudflare Argo Routing.
2. Backups
Bluehost offers different backup features on each plan. The basic plan does not have backup options, which means if your site crashes, you cannot restore it. It’s gone forever.
As a developer, I never recommend a hosting service without a backup feature. Like water and air are bare human essentials, backups are essential for an online business.
The Choice Plus plan comes with daily website backups, which are free for the first year. So, if you are willing to pay extra, Choice Plus should be your choice.
The Online Store is the only plan that comes with automated real-time backups with Jetpack at no extra cost, which is an ideal option for signing up with Bluehost.
1. The basic plan doesn’t have a backup feature; don’t buy it.
2. The Choice Plus and Pro come with free backups for the first year and are payable from the second year. So, hosting fees will substantially increase from the second year onwards. Know this information before getting a Bluehost account.
3. The Online Store plan comes with real-time backups; we recommend this plan.
3. Bluehost AI Website Builder
Testing AI Website builder is not a part of methodology but we will review it soon once its stabilizes in upcoming releases. Bluehost AI website builder is an innovative tool to speed up your WordPress design process with AI.
You can input your details like business niche, share some details and the tool will come up with AI versioned WordPress template which you can import and customize using blocks plugin.
Conclusion
Do I recommend Bluehost? NO.
Bluehost’s tech stack has stagnated for years, and lately, they’re focusing a lot on the performance front. But it’s not enough to outperform its competitors. For example, GreenGeeks and A2 Hosting outsmart Bluehost in all departments, such as performance, support, and pricing.
I don’t find a solid reason to choose Bluehost at this time.
Ask us about your hosting needs. We’ll match them to our performance data to find the best hosting for you.