Great for hosting personal websites

I've used Bluehost for about 4 years now and haven't had any problems (save when my wiki got hacked because I hadn't updated the wiki software). I don't use them for an commercial purposes but I host a family album, a wiki, a forum, and a general personal website. I have a friend who has used them for a few years as well and neither of us have had any problems. Like I said, I can't speak to using them for running a business website, but if you want to host a wiki, forums, etc. I think they are a pretty good deal. They include a lot of tools to help build website; I'm no expert but I was able to set a forum, family photo album, and wiki with the free tools that they provided.

Biggest Pro: unlimited bandwidth and storage space

Bluehost sucks

On the beggining they seemed to be fine but they started make a problems with time. They say everything is unlimited but they limited EVERYTHING. They suspended my web site and actually never expleined WHY? Only what they did was offering other plans of course more expensive! They never give me a chance to received all my files back so I lost everything i kept there, all my files. They in very rude way told me THERE IS NO BACKUP on your file! Overall BLUEHOST is sucks!KEEP AWAY!

Good customer wiped out by Bluehost

I was a good customer of bluehost, never a late payment and had been there quite a while without putting much of a strain on their helpdesk or systems. But then some hacker (hacked my system then wanted to get paid to fix it -- a bluehost employee?) got through their software and overlayed a few files in 2 of my websites. Day 1 they told me about it and told me 3 strikes and i was out. Day 2 with no other communications they shut my 5 websites down without warning. They don't follow their own rules and are totally unreasonable if a problem occurs. Not a good place for websites that are important to you.

Biggest Pro: connection speed
Biggest Con: unreasonable policies and implementation of them

No Nightly Backups on BlueHost

I discovered the hard way that BlueHost does not do nightly backups. Their marketing site says "Courtesy Site Backups" but after they had a software or hardware glitch and had to restore my "/home" folder, the backup was dated from 30 days ago so a lot of my IMAP mail customers lost a month's worth of email.

Of course, as a developer, I have all the original site files, but email account additions and other settings that were made in the last month are gone.

When inquiring about this with Tech Support, they directed me to "Terms of Agreement" page on their site which he admitted was not even accessible from their main marketing site! Of course this hidden page indicated they only do monthly backups.

Aside from this recent blow-up, where the server was down for several hours, the server has had other shorter periods of downtime but probably not more than a typical B or C rated shared host.

As for my rating, this host is a "D" at best because of their backup policy and the length they go to in order to hide this fact from new customers who would expect that "backups" are industry standard, meaning "nightly".

Biggest Pro: 24/7 Phone support.
Biggest Con: No nightly backups.

BlueHost Sucks

On the first day I couldn't get into my account because they were "upgrading" the server where my website was hosting.

On the second day, my Ticket History had been wiped out due to another Upgrade in the Ticket management system.

I asked for hep about "a" and the next day I got an answer about "b"

Tired of their poor service and support I canceled my account and asked for a full refund on the second 2 day.

According to their Terms & Conditions I was entitled to a full refund.

Then, I got replies about fixing the technical problems that I had previously reported. But no words about my cancellation request.

I asked, again, but no replies.

After telling them that I was going to file complaints against them, I got some more questions about what was my email, my account name etc.

I answered those questions. And I got more delaying questions that I answered.

I filed a complaint.

After a few daysI was told that my BlueHost account had been canceled and that a full refund had been granted.

Simply outstanding!

I've been with Bluehost for years and will be renewing again. In my experience you really can't differentiate providers when things work well. It's when they don't that you find out what you really have. Over the years there have been several "problems" that needed Bluehost attention (most I created on my own). Each time Bluehost support has stepped up and made it work. No pointed fingers, just a total commitment to get the problem solved.

Also, with some hosts what you pay for is what you get. No more, no less. Which is fine for some. But isn't it annoying when you see new plans that are better than the one you have? But that's not the case with Bluehost. As their plans have improved by adding additional upgrades and features, my plan has improve without any hassles. It makes my investment worth more down the road.

Biggest Pro: Responsive support

Bad experience, stay away

I was a paying customer for close to 3 years and one day they randomly shut down my account. Apparently one of my forums was reporting a high use of MYSQL logging. It was a mistake on my end, but they told me to find another host. I realize this is within their Terms of Service, but it was an honest mistake and they made no attempt to contact me to resolve the problem or make me aware of the situation. I got no fair chance to fix it.

Instead of helping me resolve the issue, they shut it down all my domains and essentially told me to leave. My script wasn't malicious, it was a forum not being configured correctly and getting spammed. This was causing high MYSQL queries.

Terrible support, they wouldn't even let me speak to the administrator that shutdown my account. They lots a loyal customer over stubbornness and their inability to communicate the problem to me properly.

For this I give them a HORRIBLE rating.

Biggest Pro: cheap
Biggest Con: bad support, bad customer experience

Exactly one year later...

After dumping an unresponsive host last February, I moved to BlueHost as they had pretty good ranking where ever I checked. After one year of hosting I am renewing my account for another year. Their downtime is minimal-- non-existant for my account that I know of. Their customer support via email is fast and to the point. Their services are great for a small 'hostee' like myself. Unlimited domains, consistent email with 2500 mailboxes (!), their control panel is easy to use and has many features. Their shared servers are fast and so far have never had any problems as a shared account. I can't speak for big business or dedicated server people, but for a client that has four or five sites with decent but not overwhelming traffic these guys are perfect for me.

I did cut their value score because they did raise rates in the respect that if you don't upgrade to a three year deal you get bumped to %8.95 per month. It's not a deal breaker but their was no advance notice to current customers, just the larger price filled in on the renewal notice-- unprefessional in my book. I'd recommend BlueHost and plan on renewing until their price becomes unreasonable or their customer service slips.

So far I am pleased with my plan and the service that backs it up.

Biggest Pro: Nice feature set, price is competitive and customer service is responsive.
Biggest Con: Email spam control is SpamAssassin-- which is 'fair' compared to other filtering available on Windows servers.

Good for small business.

I have been hosting my site with Bluehost for almost 2 yrs now.According to my experience with bluehost I think they are good small business hosting and honestly if you have a large business and million hits per month then why would you want shared hosting at all?

Pros: Good uptime,enough databases (50 mysql and 50 postgre),Goog bandwidth,Enough space,Decent customer service if you know what you are talking about otherwise no one can help an idiot.

Cons: Don't allow Full DNS management you have to open a ticket to get you CNAME or A record pushed.Don't allow streaming.Little bit overpriced for the service.

Remark:I recommend it for small business. Large business with over 100K hits/month please find a dedicated host and dont act cheap.

Biggest Pro: decent customer service,
Biggest Con: no DNS management

Web site down yet again

In the last three months, bluehost server issues have caused my website to be down for periods of 15-30 minutes or more. I am running a business and the outages have cost me hundreds of dollars. This evening their entire system is down and they are saying more than an hour to restore it. If you are running a business, I would not recommend ths hosting service. Their customer service doesn't even offer to discount or refund for the service outages and doesn't seem to care that these outages are impacting our businesses.

Biggest Con: down time!!