BlueHost provides great features like unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, 2500 email accounts (not that you’d need that many but one never knows) and auto-installers for WordPress along with good customer service that’s 24/7 at an affordable price of $6.95 per month. I personally use BlueHost for most of my projects (including this blog) and I’m a happy camper.

I’m reviewing BlueHost Hosting Service based on the criteria below:

• Disk space: It is good not to worry that you’ll run out of disk space soon because even in this day and age (when disk space is literally a commodity) there are a lot of hosting providers who are stingy with their disk space. Regardless of whether you choose BlueHost or not, unlimited disk space (or a very large number usually in GBs) should be one of the main criteria for hosting evaluation.
• Bandwidth per month: Unlimited. Out of all the WordPress recommended hosting providers, BlueHost is the only one that provides unlimited bandwidth in its plan.
• Number of email accounts: 2,500 email accounts. More than sufficient.
• One click installer: I especially like the combination of Cpanel and Fantastico because of its easy-to-use web-based interface. CPanel allows you to manage most aspects of your website through a web interface whereas Fantastico makes installing, upgrading and removing of applications like WordPress simply a matter of point-and-click. BlueHost also provides SimpleScripts which does the job of Fantastico but I’m not a big fan because in my experience it doesn’t do a clean job of removing applications like WordPress.
• Price Plans: $6.95 per month for 24 months and above. $7.95 per month for 12 months. $9.95 per month for 6 months and below (additional setup fee of $30). I prefer the BlueHost plan of $6.95 per month for 24 months (buy and forget).
• Databases: WordPress needs MySQL databases and BlueHost provides 100 MySQL and 100 PostgreSQL databases. This means that you can have a maximum of 100 WordPress installations running under your hosting account.
• Add-on domains: Traditionally, you could only host one domain per hosting account but this was a bit limiting and cumbersome if you were running multiple websites. So the solution is add-on domains which allows you to run more than one domain from a single hosting account. BlueHost provides unlimited add-on domains which means you can run up to 100 unique WordPress websites (limited by number of databases provided – unless the databases are shared but that’s a more advanced topic) or unlimited static HTML websites. On the flip side, many argue that running multiple websites from one hosting account may not be so prudent because they all share the same IP address and for example, if Google bans the IP (highly unlikely) then all your websites will be affected. This advice primarily means that do not put all your eggs into one basket. Regardless, it is better to have the option of running multiple add-on domains from one hosting account.
• Demo Login: Demo login is important so that you can test-drive the hosting interface before you decide to purchase hosting from BlueHost. Fortunately, BlueHost provides a demo login. Go to BlueHost and click the “Tell Me More” button followed by “Demo Login” button.
• Customer service: Needless to say, customer service is important. BlueHost provides 24/7 customer service via phone at (888) 401-4678, live chat and email help via its automated help desk and ticketing service. Especially if you live in a different timezone, 24/7 support is vital.
• Reliability: It is hard to ascertain reliability until you actually start using a hosting service. However, you can check the number of problems reported for BlueHost on public websites like Google Groups and WordPress.org support forums. However, this cannot be absolutely accurate because the number of problems is usually directly proportional to their number of customers. Additionally, check whether they have a server status monitoring system. For example, at the time of writing BlueHost has 99 issues for ‘Bluehost WordPress problem’ at Google Groups and 1360 issues for ‘Bluehost WordPress problem’ at WordPress.Org forums. A good thing about BlueHost have a server status checking at http://serverstatus.bluehost.com/

Overall, I would heartily recommend BlueHost and intend to write more about BlueHost specific CPanel and Fantastico articles. If you have ideas about topics then please contact me.