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!!

Bad Customer relation Jaking up price without customer content...

The jack up the price for old customers without warning. They offer 6.95 a month for new sign ups but for current customers like me who is almost 3 years with them, they bill 8.95 a month. When I called, they said that 6.95 a month is for new customers only and if I want this price I would have to pay up front for 3 years. Rip off people. Stay away from unprofessional company. Do not use BLUEHOST.COM. Once they obtain credit card they can do whatever they want. I'm reporting them also maximumpc magazine, I'll see what they going to say about it.

Biggest Pro: N/A
Biggest Con: Bad Customer relation

The Absolute worst in every regard

I don’t know where to start, so here’s a run down the issues the elaborate:

99.9% uptime is a joke.
In 4 months I’ve logged 11 hours of downtime. That’s over 2 hours more than the allotted down time by that statistic, and that’s only what I’ve notices on nights and weekends.

Bandwidth is worse than dial up I had 10 years ago.
It took 37 minutes to download a 2 minute, 11MB streaming FLV file. I uploaded the same file, and same page, to another host I’m using, and it took 33 seconds to download.

Customer Service... uh, what customer service?
I reported both these problems through their helpdesk ticket system, neither which were ever replied too.

So, I called. On the first issue, that flat out told me I’m wrong. I read the dates and times, that said that couldn’t be right. I asked for what their logs should on those dates, the said that information wasn’t available.

The second issue - first they didn’t understand at all what I was talking out. Then the tried to tell me it was a service provider issue. I then explained having both site host on my screen right now as I spoke, to which I got no reply - I was asked to hold, but was disconnect instead. My next call was to cancel service.

Biggest Pro: Well, they did manage to charge my credit card promptly if you call that a pro
Biggest Con: Everythng. I mean everything. Nothing good about this host exisit.

This is not your long term web hosting.

I have 2 major problems with bluehost.

- Bluehost control panel and web email access use 2000 plus port number. I am behind the fire wall and totally blocked. So if you are behind firewall like me, go find another web hosting.

- I installed egroupware in my account and it works fine for long time. However suddenly it behaves strangely someday. I asked bluehost customer support if php or mysql has been updated recently. They did not answer my question directly, no any suggestion, and no any help

Finally I figured out bluehost upgraded php to 5.2.6. So I ask them if they can down grade php to previous version or move my account to different server with 5.2.5 or old php. Their response is NO. So if you are not software engineer or want have a stable website, bluehost is not a hosting company for you. Your website will stop working someday and you will not get any clue what happened. I have no choice and have to move to different web hosting company.

Bluehost Not Reliable

To describe my experience with Bluehost would take nothing short of a novel. I had two accounts with Bluehost for two years. The major problems I had with Bluehost were sporadic, continual downtimes on a regular basis and email never did work on one account.

To read about my nightmare with Bluehost goto the site I provided with my link.

http://inetintegrity.com/weblog/?p=1

Biggest Pro: Bluehost is cheap
Biggest Con: Excessive Downtime