Why I chose Bluehost? A little over two years ago, I had many websites hosted on single domain name plans by iPower, eDataRack, Lypha, 1&1, and others. All of the hosting providers were giving me acceptable to great service. Kudos should be given to iPower as their server hosting CrazyPenguin.us was listed in the top ten uptime category for two years by Netcraft. In fact I have used well over 20 hosting companies over the years with little to no problems. Bluehost was offering to host 6 domains under one plan with 15GB of data storage and 400GB of data transfer. The plan looked like it would be great for my purposes. On Bluehost’s website they offered:
With BlueHost you can depend on:
Highest customer service
Quality equipment
Maximum guaranteed uptime
Highly functional tools for adminstration
The leading feature set available
Secure and reliable backups
Solid and honest business
So how could one possibly go wrong with such a offer?
The very first week I had problems with a SQL database being corrupted on box67 hosting KernelPanics.com. OK, no problem, no need to contact tech support, so I reloaded the database. A couple of days later the site went down for 2 hours. The following day the site was down for 3 hours. Two days later site was down for 10 hrs. Being concerned about the downtime I contacted Bluehost technical support by email. Flavio assured me this was not a common occurrence and even claimed to extend my account one month due to the downtime. I only have one problem. I never received the one month extension to my account. The intermittent downtime had continued on a regular basis on two different accounts with Bluehost during the two years I had been hosted with them. If Flavio would ever come good on his offer, I think, I ought to be up to around about 27 years worth of extended hosting due to the continual downtime while being with Bluehost. But this was just the beginning of sorrows.
On another account, box88, I was hosting a forum, AlienChaos.com, with about 25 to 30 visitors. One of the members kindly notified me she was not receiving her email notifications when someone posted to her. Checking out the problem led me back to Bluehost’s technical support. After 4 days, over 25 emails, and a half a dozen phone calls with no results, my patience was wearing thin. So I posted my problem in the Bluehost forum to see if anyone else was having similar problems. Rando Bluehost’s “Mail Demi-God” tried to help solve the problem, which I thank him for his attempt, but nothing was resolved. After exchanging posts with Rando for an additional 12 days and 4 pages of discussions on the forum, I canceled the box88 account and was issued a refund. I just could not justify keeping the account with Bluehost due to not being able to use my site for over 2/3rds of the time in the first 30 days of service. Still wanting to make AlienChaos.com available to my members, I moved the forum to box70 where CrazyPenguin.us was the main domain. At last the email notifications worked for a whole two weeks and then died. Yikes! Now the email did not work for CrazyPenguin.us and AlienChaos.com. I finally ended up using a Gmail account to send email notifications for the forum since Bluehost’s email would not function. So far if this doesn’t make you want to run away from this company like a monkey with its tail on fire, I don’t know what would. But the drama with Bluehost gets even better.
Bluehost implies in their marketing material you can run dynamic websites using programs like Wordpress, b2evolution, phpBB forum, Coppermine, Gallery, Drupal, Joomla, and other programs listed in Fantastico. And you can, but what they don’t tell you, if you do run such programs even with minimal traffic you will get the dreaded “exceeds cpu quota“ error. And your site will be suspended for 5 minutes each time this happens. Wolfpackmars2 gets the dreaded “exceeds cpu quota” error with only ONE person accessing his site, his mother when he tries to share some photos with her. If you really want to have some fun just to see how bad this problem actually is, go to your favorite search engine and type in “Bluehost cpu quota” or “Bluehost cpu error”. You can spend endless hours reading about customers that are anywhere from very disgruntled to extremely pissed off. Bluehost will try to blame the “exceeds cpu quota” error on poorly written scripts or running too many process at once. The argument doesn’t hold water because all the rest of the hosting companies don’t have any problems running such programs. So what is the solution to the problem? Felgall, a self proclaimed computer consultant and chief, minion, moderator at Bluehost forum, has one solution. Static websites? Are you kidding? Any hosting company in the world can provide “static” web content. Even Steve Alligood (Principal Systems Administrator) aka “alligosh” infers that Bluehost would prefer you to use static pages on their servers with high traffic. What do you consider high traffic 10, 20, or maybe even 30 visits per day? How about 1 to 4 visits per day on JunkDraw’s site? I would say a couple thousand hits per day to be acceptable. The best gem comes from the “exceeded cpu quota” (circled in red) error page. “Using static .html documents instead of painful .php scripts will practically eliminate CPU usage.” Painful .php scripts? Good grief! I must admit it has been a painful experience being hosted by Bluehost. But not due to a php script. It has been painful because Bluehost claims to provide adequate uptime, functional email service, and to effectively being able to run dynamic content. Bluehost failed to deliver the services that they promised in all three areas.
So who is the brain behind Bluehost?
Matt Heaton is the CEO and uber evangelist of Bluehost, Hostmonster, and Fastdomain. Matt, in your blog (1, 2, 3, 4) you claim how Bluehost is always improving. But nothing has been for the better for me while being hosted with Bluehost. I still have the same problems with pages taking forever to load. You still provide the same lousy service with all the built in features like excessive downtime, malfunctional email, and those lovely “exceeds cpu quota” errors. By the way have you considered putting one of those nifty little flashing Bluehost banner ads on the bottom of the “exceeds cpu quota” error pages. Just think of the market presence you would gain! Matt, you have picked the right names for your companies. The choice of naming Bluehost couldn’t be more appropriate as it is the bluest (def: sad and gloomy; depressed or depressing) hosting company in the business. The name Hostmonster fits well as you truly have created a monster in the hosting world. Fastdomain on the other hand is an oxymoron, but fitting in a jocular sense none the less. Matt, I commend you for creating the most dysfunctional, unreliable, and pathetic hosting organization on the planet.
Richard Silverstein says:
Ah, this recalls my own horror stories over precisely the same issues with Bluehost. The red screen of death. They simply couldn’t tell me what was happening, why it was happening or when it would stop happening. They didn’t have a clue. I’ve never really seen customer service like that before. How do you run a business in which your main product–hosting–breaks and you don’t know how to fix it? Frankly, other than being cheap I don’t understand why they have any customers and how they stay in business.
I did the same as you–asked for my money back & moved to a friend’s virtual server.
BTW, I’ve heard great things about Dreamhost & I don’t work for them or get any benefit out of mentioning them.
12 January 2008, 3:22 amCrazy Penguin says:
Richard,
After reading your blog, Tikun Olum, what amazes me the most it, was over two years ago when you posted your article. And Bluehost has not made any conscious effort to improve their lousy service since. I am bewildered, as well, how Bluehost can stay in business with the pathetically poor service they provide. Perhaps it is a matter of complacency, with both with the customer and Bluehost.
Actually I had three accounts with Bluehost at one time. I cancelled only one of the accounts initially. The other two accounts I had for two very long years of miserable service with Bluehost.
Downtownhost, A2hosting, Steadfast Networks, and NearlyFreeSheech.net are the hosting companies, I am using now. I haven’t had any problems with any of them. No downtime or any other technical problems. I would also recommend Dreamhost. Hostgator is another decent hosting company.
I wish you the best in regards to your blog and promotng the voice of peace for Israel and Palestine.
CP
20 January 2008, 11:58 pmKirk M says:
Wow! Now that’s something. I have 3 WordPress sites on Bluehost and except for a couple minor problems (which a call to Bluehost support solved fairly quickly) I haven’t had a problem with any of them. One thing I made sure of was that PHP fastcgi was not enabled. That was guaranteed to give you the errors you mentioned in your post. I’m not sure why your DB was corrupted. I have several friends hosting with Bluehost that haven’t had any problems at all yet perusing about the forums there’s obviously those who do. Go figure.
Glad you found an answer. Oh and BTW…there’s just as many of the same complaints about Dreamhost as there is about Bluehost and just as many satisfied customers. It’s the beauty of shared hosting.
22 January 2008, 8:27 amCrazy Penguin says:
Kirk,
In your blog you talk about a “Server Blurp” and a “Server Down” ? And you also mention that your, Bluehost server had a data corruption problem and your websites plus your personal & wifes business email were down all day. So why was your data corrupted? It sounds as if you have had more than a few minor problems with Bluehost to me.
Bluehost even had a data corruption problem with their Bluehost forum. In fact Bluehost lost all the data in the SQL database and had make a fresh install of the forum. So all the prior posts were lost. If Bluehost is not capable of maintaining data on the server running their own forum, why should any client entrust Bluehost with their personal or business data.
The answer to my problem involved dumping Bluehost and obtaining a competent hosting provider. If I would have had minor problems with one out the three servers, all could have been easily understood. But having major continual problems with all three servers, I used while being hosted at Bluehost, is highly unaccepable. Bluehost is a prime example of where their incompetence far exceeds their level of technical expertise.
BTW: I have been in the IT world close to thirty years, so it is not like I am some newbie muddling through this for the first time.
Have a good day,
CP
26 January 2008, 2:20 amKirk M says:
Didn’t mean to suggest you were a newbie at all. Sorry if I seemed too. Yes, those things did happen however the problem with the corrupted server was fixed promptly and with no loss of data. I agree that Fellgall is an idiot and should be banned from the forums. Anyway, since the upgrade to the box I run on there hasn’t been a problem since but I hear what your saying and perhaps when my time is up with Bluehost I’ll head somewhere else. Perhaps I’ll have my own LAMPS server percolating in the corner.
Have a good day yourself,
Kirk M
28 January 2008, 12:09 pmCrazy Penguin says:
Kirk,
No worries, I did not think you were inferring I was newbie. As for Felgall, I have no problem with him. The only thing he did wrong was to get in the cross fire between Bluehost and myself. Good luck on your hosting journeys whether it be with Bluehost, another company, or a DIY server.
CP
29 January 2008, 6:53 pmBHBASTERD says:
Thank goodness for these forums to release all the stress I have acquired from the poor support, management, and web development. I would have benefited more if I used the money I lost to blue host as toilet paper. If did not design the website and manual insert text and correct all the spelling mistakes, the website would not have gotten aware. It has been 7 months since my initial payment an d the blue host website is still not online and has more problem as they pretend to email me saying that they performed work with no action really taken. If there was ever a hell on planet Earth, it would have originated from bluehost. It’s truly embarrassing to even be associated with bh. I wish there was redemption process to get back all the lost time and money and life they took from me.
6 February 2008, 3:23 pmralphie says:
Man…am I confused. I have (in my opinion) a good idea, I want to start off on the right foot. Now that I’ve searched (the best of) hosting I am totally confused. The loves and hates are extremes on every web host site. What’s the best Host for support and every other necessary feature…cause I am a Newbie? Thanks
9 February 2008, 10:36 amCrazy Penguin says:
I don’t know what criteria you are desiring from a web host? If you are looking for a hosting company for a personal or small business website, Downtownhost or A2hosting both have been very good to me. I have no vested interest in either one of them.
12 February 2008, 4:51 pmWeb Hosting says:
Hey. Thanks for stopping by.
If you’d like to write an article/review about a different host, I’d love to publish it. Let me know if you’re interested.
http://bluetrick.com
6 March 2008, 6:11 pmSpencer says:
Bluehost service is very deceptive. Basically they
1) Make changes without telling you. Took our site down 31 hours, until our developers fixed it.
2) Have no hidden fees… But charge extra for spam filtering… cancel the service we paid a year in advance a few months later… and forget to credit the money back.
If you look at all the reviews, clearly Matt Heaton is paying kickbacks to sites all over the place.
I am going to A2 hosting.
12 March 2008, 5:58 pmThomas says:
“I still have some domains registered and hosted at BlueHost, but I’m gradually getting them moved elsewhere; that company is a nightmare. I’ll have everything out of there by November; do yourself a favor and don’t even get started with these idiots. They’re high on my list of companies I’d like to see destroyed and never heard from again.”
From http://stevemarkwell.com/2008/01/registrars-and-hosts.html
13 March 2008, 5:05 pmbluehostsucks says:
I did the wrong and i lost my money in that trash called bluehost, bluehost SUCKS MAN, its the worse hosting company, actually its a FAKE HOSTING COMPANY, the plans ARE FAKE and if they see you need bandwidth they WILL SUSPEND YOUR ACCOUNT WITHOUT A REASON AND WIDTHOUT REFUND as they did to me.
BLUEHOST = SUCKHOST, BLUEHOST SUCKS, AVOID THOSE F***ING THIEVES, THEY SELL FAKE SERVICES, EVERYTHING IS TO TRICK YOU AND TAKE YOUR MONEY, AFTER THE required period from which you can’t claim a refund from your bank merchant, they just remove your account to make space for another victim.
15 March 2008, 2:35 pmTom says:
This is pretty insightful Penguin… Thanks for sharing. I have considered Bluehost in the past - quite recently in fact - and I can’t even remember now why I decided against them. But, I’m certainly glad that I did.
15 March 2008, 3:32 pmLisa T says:
Wow! Brings back memories. I used Bluehost for 6 months before pulling the plug with these idiots. My experiences were similar to yours. Waaaaay too much downtime and customer service sucks. I waited two weeks on one ticket which I called everyday for an update. I got the we’re working on it line of crap every time. Bluehost sucks! I would never deal with these idiots again. Never!
20 March 2008, 11:24 amAasemoon says:
I wonder, with all the people who are unhappy with Bluehost, how do they still manage to stay in business? It’s the weirdest thing. I mean I read the CEOs blog and he still bloody pretends that all is good and nice with their supposed “improvements” and such. It just makes me sick.
22 March 2008, 12:50 pmLa Bamba says:
Well after a lot of reading I find many reasons not to use Bluehost… what do I use???
what is a reliable source for hosting ratings?
Any good ideas?
28 March 2008, 2:51 pmCrazy Penguin says:
Web Hosting Talk commonly referred to as WHT is a good resource for user reviews. Whreviews is another place for good advise on hosting. I really haven’t found any other reviews sites that I trust.
Tips for Not Getting Screwed by Web Hosts
The problem with so many of the “top ten” review sites is, they are created by affiliates selling for those “top ten” on their list. They could care less about your hosting welfare as long as they make a sale on one of the “top ten” on their list.
Avoid all review sites that do not allow you to leave comments. More then likely such sites are just an advertisement for that host.
I am leery of most simple answers in forums on recommended hosts. The answer goes something like this,”I think Bluehost, Hostmonster, and Hostgator are good.” or “I recommend Bluehost, Hostmonster, and 1and1.” I always ask at least three questions. 1) Have you actually used the host? 2) If so how long have you used the host? (anything less than 6 month fails my test) and 3) What are you running on your site? They have be running software similar or or more resource intensive then what I plan to run on my site.
31 March 2008, 11:50 pmmark says:
I am only here to say I signed up to be an affiliate for bluehost and before spending any time creating any promotions on them I signed up for their hosting just to see what my future leads were going to get.
8 April 2008, 3:07 pmWell… bluehost KILLED my hosting account within 24 hours accusing me to giving them inaccurate contact info.
They won’t reply to any emails now. (???)
Their affiliate manager sound like those fascists that john belushi almost ran over in “Blues Brothers”.
I don’t understand what’s happening with bluehost nor why they treated me like this, nor do I care. I am just here to warn anyone who might be thinking of joining them. These are proper cowboys, they’ll shoot first then they’ll ask “who is there”. I still don’t have a clue what their problem with me was and life’s too short to even bother. I just hope my paypal dispute will help get my $95 back. Oh and while I was in there, it isn’t true that you get adwords and yahoo credits! You only get them if you JOIN adwords and yahoo via bluehost’s AFFILIATE’s link!
Brendan says:
I have been searching for a good and reliable cheap hosting since few months ago. I was very excited while I found Hostmonster because of its features. I did some deep research on hostmonster and I end up with dissapointment.
It is impossible to get 1500 GB disk space and 15,000 GB transfer because Hostmonster limit the upload file size. I am pretty sure Hostmonster/Bluehost will be providing unlimited space and transfer rate.
I was thinking to join Hostmonster affiliate but I couldn’t find my country name in the drop down list. I sent a ticket to their customer support to acquire reason but they never reply me. I commented this issue to bluehost CEO Matt Heaton blog with sicere words but my comment got deleted by him. From Matt’s blog, he claimed himself hate to lose but he dont know he is losing his valueable customers every moment.
Bluehost and Hostmonster are getting more and more customers because they give incorrect information. For newbies that dont know about hosting, most of them might sign up these companies because of attractive packages.
One of my blogger friend from Taiwan was pulled off his hosting from Host monster recently. He used Wordpress and he said Hostmoster is strict to Wordpress plugin. He created and managed the “Most Popular posts” with static link by himself, this is so ridiculous.
Any good recommendation of web hosting while I am observing downtown and a2webhosting?
13 April 2008, 12:30 amTaliesin says:
We tried Bluehost but were so irritated with them we never even put up a web site and moved back to 1and1.com.
First, after registering online and paying, they would not establish an account until we had called them. They then mentioned that they were putting our phone number into their database.
Second, to enable a shell account (ssh) we would have to “scan and send your PHOTO ID as an email attachment”.
very creepy
14 April 2008, 12:34 pmJJ says:
Hi there people. Just browsing, saw the site. I would totally recommend bluehost and/or hostmonster. It’s unfortunate some of you have had tech. problems. When you have over 200 server computers there’s not 1 day I would imagine that there is not a problem somewhere with hardware or software issues. I think most of you are unaware that tons of problems that a host has to deal with are caused by customers improperly installed scripts and such that don’t just effect thier site but whole servers. I’ve had 3 accounts with over 50 websites for over 4 years with nothing really to bitch about. As far as all you guys griping about getting banned or kicked out within 24 hrs., you simply did not provide information that matches the billing info., As an internet business man myself that is the first sign of fraud. Maybe you are unaware of the amount of signups that are fraud. Fill in the proper info. next time and save everyone your speach.
22 April 2008, 9:16 amCrazy Penguin says:
Folks, JJ isn’t ever going to say anything negative about Bluehost / Hostmonster / FastDomain or any the rest of the web hosting companies that he happens to be peddling as an affiliate. JJ is not after your best interest to find the right web host for you. He is just after grabbing your dollar. JJ has a pile of top sites out on the net in an attempt to trap you into purchasing from him so he can get a commission check. JJ’s email leads to an affiliate link dump called hostcritique.com.
Edit: JJ is Jonathan Heaton. Wow! What a coincidence that Matt Heaton and Jonathan Heaton live around Oremville where Bluehost and Hostmonster are located. It sure is a small world down there in Oremville!?
22 April 2008, 11:46 pmMori says:
@JJ: Well, that’s cool. If it was one-time thing nobody would bother - it can happen to anyone. If your MySQL database is down every other day and all the techs can do is to delete and reinstall mysqld you start to worry… And that’s what is happening on Bluehost lately. I have asked if our account could be moved to another box, but that was denied.
I love overselling that Bluehost is offering, hosting over 500 accounts on one server (and promising so much free space they could never afford), but hell, that’s too much downtime for me and I’m just waiting for the contract with Bluehost ends to move from there for good…
24 April 2008, 10:21 amTony says:
These f..rs f@#king my brains about 3rd week - we have problems with mysql database ….
Someone who shared same server with us - are putting our mysql database on knees …
I would like to move to dedicated hosting right now …
24 April 2008, 1:26 pmCurnunnos says:
i too have been seduced and abused by bluehost. i have been using their services for just over 2 years now and have had nothing but trouble from the start. add-on domains not showing, scripts not running. lousy customer support. my account has been used as a showcase for my clients : to show them what is possible i then arrange their hosting elswhere. a couple of weeks ago a client contacted me and said “i didn’t know you did porn sites” yup, on of my domains had been hacked into and porno vids posted, needless to say i removed it immediately, since then i have been unable to get any sense from their customer support, nor an i able to http://ftp. new domains do not appear. that’s it i have had enough!
2 May 2008, 2:01 ami am on the move. i would never ever recommend their “service” to anyone. let’s see if i get my money back - i bet i don’t!
Thales says:
I just recently had a client migrate from Blue Host, they had mixed feelings about the company. The customer said BH had helpful support, most of the time, but their site suffered from consistent downtime. Another associate was hosted with them for a month or two and had TERRIBLE service with them, they would report an outage, BH would restart HTTP, then it would go out again. He moved to DreamHost and got -NAILED- by their billing snafu.
Great review. I love reading hosting reviews as I can always take away something that can benefit my business practices.
-fin
8 May 2008, 11:41 amThales
ollie says:
blue host for me have been a total nightmare.
from shuting my server down after sending a email to my forum members via the mailing list for a week.
to loosing my entire database yesterday, (thankfully my back up was 3days ago, there last back up was march 2008
my site is currently down again….
i wrote what had happend to me in the bluehost forums yesteray and they deleted it.
support is useless, live chat people ignore you when they no there in the wrong
rubbish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
14 May 2008, 5:58 amI CAN SEE WHERE HOSTMONSTER GOT THEIR NAME. says:
Here’s my diary. I was REALLLY considering on either Bluehost or Hostmonster. Just an hour ago, I went on Hostmonster and had everything filled out and my credit number and everything, was about ready to press the submit button, but then something in my head just told me to read the terms. Then I started getting interested in how good this host really was, then I started doing researches on Hostmonster, found out that Hostmonster and Bluehost were related bla bla bla. But all the review I had were back in 2007 backtacking to 2005. I wanted current reviews. So after about almost 2 weeks of indecisiveness on whether or not I should get Hostmonster or Bluehost and after reading through almost 15 review sites about them, I am finally resting my case on these two hosts. I was really really sure I wanted Hostmonster, but I rest my case, no more are they on my list. I’m sure every hosts got their downtime, but seems like hostmonster and bluehost just have major problems.
15 May 2008, 1:18 amI’m glad I didn’t continue purchasing them or else I would of been f u k k d
But now, I’m on another mission
Shawn says:
I’m looking for a decent host too. 1&1 has been giving me 500 server errors rebuilding my MovableType 4.1 blog with only 87 entries. Pretty crazy, I think I have around 300-400 visits a week. It’s only when I rebuild or publish an entry though, so no big deal… ha!
Here are 1&1 hard limits on shared servers:
* A process may only use a CPU at 100% for 6 seconds
* A process may use a maximum of 12 mb of RAM
* A maximum of 12 process to be run at any 1 time
So 1&1 is out, Bluehost is out, webhostingpad has a similar limitation:
“All accounts will be only allowed to use 10% of cpu and memory and can not exceed a session longer then 10 min. This includes all database uses, email, cron jobs, and any FTP sessions”
I’m not sure if your rebuild script is killed if it tries to use 10% of the CPU, but any efficiently written application will always try to consume 100% of the CPU, then finish quickly. That’s exactly what I tried to do my 6 years at Intel optimizing applications.
I guess I’ll have to keep searching…
22 May 2008, 9:00 pmDana Herem says:
We suffered the same issues most of you have. (No backups, resource issues, site randomly going down with explanation) Pretty much why we left Bluehost and moved to Server Intellect. 7 months so far so good. No issues and we can call them and get a live person on the phone. I think if you wanna know how a good a Host is call them like 5 times during the week and see if they answer, and just the sales department.
12 June 2008, 2:45 pmPax Asiana » Hosting Move to Hostgator says:
[...] the whole hosting account for a little bit after trying to do some fairly normal stuff. You can see this guy’s rant/article for more [...]
17 June 2008, 1:59 pmBluehost review says:
I was with Bluehost more than 3 years without serious problems. 2 weeks ago they suspended my account. Live support told me my account was hacked and they are sorry but i have to fix problems mysef. I hired a security freelancer to do this job. They mounted my panel on and they shuted it down again during his work. My account has been suspended again with notice to contact support fast for a detailed info. Live support do not anwer, they only suggesting submit a written ticket or contact via email. All written tickets are not answered more than week (24/7 support
). I asked for access my sites to download the files but they do not answered nor this demand.
I definitely decided to leave Bluehost. I am wondering if this is even possible with their big promises….
I must tell, my experience with Bluehost is terrible.
1 September 2008, 11:46 amResearching a new server « Realizing {Me} says:
[...] __________________Bluehost my review [...]
22 September 2008, 6:31 amrogerwilliam says:
i want to be part of the member of this site
10 October 2008, 4:22 pm