Bluehost is a web hosting company which is run by Matt Heaton.  It is basically providing affordable and reliable web hosting plans for small companies and individuals.  And today, it claims to be hosting over 775,000 domains.

I’ve been an ex-customer of bluehost

I had been a bluehost customer before, and I was quite pleasant being their customer for almost 2 years.  But I moved on to another hosting company about 5 months before my contract expired, and I will tell you why later in this post.

Introduction to bluehost

Bluehost basically provides one shared hosting plan (It means many clients sharing the same server.) only.  With this plan, you have unlimited hosting space (hard disk space in other words), have unlimited file transfer (unlimited bandwidth in other words), have unlimited domain names in the same plan, and up to 2,500 email accounts.

Bluehost President is very hands-on

Bluehost is using linux operating system for its servers.  It is a very reliable operating system, and Matt is a performance freak who will find out any server problem arises and solve the problem even at the very programming code in the kernel.

What does your web designer need to know about your purchase of hosting plan?

As for server scripts, it supports

• PHP 5,
• Perl 5,
• Python,
• Ruby / Ruby on Rails.

As for databases, they have

• MySQL 
• and PostgreSQL.

Please note that this is a very important point to take note when you are engaging a web design company to help you to create your website.

You will be using CPanel to manipulate your stuff

CPanel is widely used by many shared hosting companies.  It is very easy to use, and it has many friendly features for non-technical people to perform technical configuration easily.  CPanel seems to be everywhere, and I almost can’t find any other shared hosting companies using other software.

With CPanel, you will be able to install many types of website scripts very easily with a few clicks.  Blogs like WordPress and b2evolution, Forums like PHPBB, Mailing Lists, Image Galleries, Poll and Survey software, Content Management System like Joomla, shopping cart like OS Commerce, and so on.

What other features does bluehost provide?

It provides multimedia features such as video streaming, audio streaming, flash support, REAL audio and video support, shockwave, and midi.  You can also add your own MIME types too.

What about the support side?

Technically, it provides battery backup (in case of power failure), website backups (in case of file missing or corruption), and 24/7 network monitoring for server stability.

It provides live chat for visitors and customers who wish to talk to bluehost directly.  It also allows you to open a help ticket, and they will give you a better explanation and support in their replies, and they have their knowledgebase for you to look through the frequently asked questions.

And if you wish to speak to the customer support directly, they do have phone numbers for you to call as well.

How much does it cost?

Bluehost comes with 5 price plans for different customers’ needs.

If you wish to try their plan for just 3 months or 6 months, you can sign up with the following plan:

• US$30 setup fee
• US$9.95 per month for 3 or 6 months
• US$10 for a new domain registration with bluehost (with an optional domain privacy for free)

If you are pretty serious with your online business, and wish to test your plan for 1 year, this is the plan for you:

• No setup fee
• US$7.95 per month for 1 year
• Free registration of a new domain name of your choice with bluehost (with an optional domain privacy for free)

If you are here to stay to own your online business, this is the 2 years or 3 years plan for you:

• No setup fee
• US$6.95 per month for 1 year
• Free registration of a new domain name of your choice with bluehost (with an optional domain privacy for free)

It is pretty straightforward here.  The more you buy, the more you save.  My suggestion is to buy 2 years if you have the intention to start your online business.  That’s because a typical online business will only work from at least 2 years onwards.  You can treat these 2 years as your learning curve with low traffic coming in with only a total payment of US$166.80.  Shared hosting will always have its constraint because you are basically sharing the same server with many other bluehost customers.  Hence, once you have established higher traffic and you are experiencing poor server performance to serve your website, you know that it is time for you to upgrade to a more dedicated server!

Payment is made easy by credit card or PayPal.  If you are paying by PayPal, it can also utilize the credit card details you have provided when your PayPal fund has no enough to pay.

Conclusion

Like I said earlier, shared hosting has its own constraint.  Bluehost has a very strong founder at the back supporting the operations.  I can still remember the time when I decided to move out of bluehost.  That was because my websites have been suspended due to causing performance issue with the bluehost server.  At first, I was really angry about it because bluehost is stopping me from serving my customers.  But of course, looking at the big picture, the server may cause other hosting customers to be angry as well.  They will rather have me to be angry, than to cause many more to be angry.  I think it is a reasonable move and it is the right move to take.  But because I am also busy with my other projects, I have no time to find the root of the problem which the bluehost support has indicated to me.  It seems to be easier for me to copy the whole thing out, and paste it onto a new hosting server and get it up and running.  And I did so, and I am now with another hosting company called “Media Temple”.  And the reason for causing the performance issue is because I have used a single user to access the database from all my websites.  Anyway, the day before they suspended me, I was only upgrading my WordPress to version 2.7.  :)

Find out more about bluehost’s affordable and reliable web hosting plan today!