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Bluehost Managed WordPress Hosting: An Objective Review

Looking for a new hosting for your website? If your website is built with WordPress, you can consider using a managed WordPress hosting service. Bluehost is one of the prominent web hosting providers that offers a managed WordPress hosting service. In this post, we will show you the overview of the managed WordPress hosting service from Bluehost — as well as a brief review about it.

What is a managed WordPress hosting, by the way?

In case you haven’t heard about it. A managed WordPress hosting is a type of hosting service whereby the resources are optimized for WordPress. These include server configuration, software configuration (PHP in particular), and other technical aspects related to website operation. In most cases, a managed WordPress hosting service also offers features like routine backups, WordPress updates, plugin updates, security, and so on. Here are the common features offered by a managed WordPress hosting service:

  • WordPress-optimized resources
  • Software updates (WordPress core, plugins)
  • Staging environment
  • Caching
  • Backup
  • Security

Using a managed WordPress hosting is especially great if you want to focus on your business growth as you can put more focus on marketing, content creation, and other aspects related to business growth.

Bluehost Managed WordPress Hosting: Features

Bluehost divides its managed WordPress hosting service into three plans:

  • Build
  • Grow
  • Scale

The main features included in each plan are similar, but there are some differences in the detailed specs. For instance, the Build plan (the lowest plan) offers only 20 GB of storage space, while the Grow plan (the middle plan) offers 40 GB of storage space. The higher the plan, the higher the specs you will get as well.

Here are the main features and specs offered by Bluehost managed WordPress hosting.

Bluehost Managed WordPress Hosting: Features

You can click the button above to learn the main features offered by Bluehost on its managed WordPress hosting service. Bluehost itself uses third-party services for certain features. For instance, Bluehost uses a service from CodeGuard for its backup feature. While for malware protection, SiteGround uses a service from SiteLock.

Here are the main features offered by Bluehost managed WordPress hosting.

1. File Access

File access is a crucial feature you need to notice before subscribing to a certain web hosting service. Without the feature, you won’t be able to access the files of your WordPress site. You need a file access feature to make certain changes to a file (e.g., wp-config.php), to perform a manual backup, to verify site ownership on Google Search Console, and so on.

The managed WordPress hosting service from Bluehost comes with a file manager to allow you to access your site files. You can access the feature from the Settings menu inside Bluehost admin panel. Bluehost uses cPanel for this feature.

In addition to file manager, Bluehost also offers SSH which you can use to access your files. Bluehost offers no FTP.

2. Database Access

Database access is another crucial feature you need to notice before you subscribe to a certain web hosting plan. The feature allows you to make a certain change to a table on your database. Also, it allows you to perform a manual backup. Bluehost allows you to access your site database via PhpMyAdmin. You can also access the database by clicking the Settings menu on the Bluehost admin panel.

3. Jetpack Integration

Jetpack is a WordPress plugin from Automattic. It offers a wide range of services. From analytics, security, CRM, and so on. The managed WordPress hosting service from Bluehost is bundled with Jetpack. The service types you get varied depending on the plan you subscribe to. If you use the Build plan (the lowest plan), you will only have access to the analytics service of Jetpack. You can access the analytics whether via your WordPress dashboard or Bluehost admin panel.

4. SiteLock Integration for Malware Protection

When you use Bluehost managed WordPress hosting, your website is protected from malware by SiteLock.

SiteLock itself is an online security service. The integration with it will add an extra security layer to your website. The service performs malware scanning on a daily basis. You can login to the SiteLock dashboard to view the scanning results. No need to create a SiteLock account to enable the feature. Bluehost will set everything.

5. CodeGuard Integration for Routine Backups

The managed WordPress hosting from Bluehost is integrated with CodeGuard for the routine backups. Your website is backed up on a daily basis, but you can also set a different backup frequency if you want it. The service backs up both the WordPress files and database. The lowest plan offers 1 GB backup storage. No extra plugin is needed to use the CodeGuard service.

6. Cloudflare Integration for Site Performance

You might have heard about Cloudflare, a prominent CDN and caching service. The managed WordPress hosting service from Bluehost is integrated with Cloudflare (the free version) to bring a faster loading to your website. You don’t need to make any setting to integrate your website with Cloudflare. Bluehost does it for you. You can set the caching setting according to the type of website you have on Bluehost. Whether it is an e-commerce site, blog, or a portfolio website.

7. Other Features

In addition to the features above, the managed WordPress hosting from Bluehost also offers the following features:

  • SSL
  • Staging environment
  • Software updates (WordPress core and plugins)
  • CDN

Bluehost Managed WordPress Hosting: Performance Test

Testing a WordPress-based website performance involves many things. From plugins used, theme used, the internet speed on the tester side, to hosting service. We tested the performance of Bluehost managed WordPress hosting on a website with the following specs:

  • Theme: Hello
  • Active plugins: Elementor, Jetpack, Akismet, Bluehost

We used GTmetrix Grade to test the performance and here is the result.

Generated metrics:

  • First Contentful Paint: 513 ms
  • Speed Index: 751 ms
  • Largest Contentful Paint: 791 ms
  • Time to Interactive: 513 ms
  • Total Blocking Time: 0 ms
  • Cumulative Layout Shift: 0

The Bottom Line

Bluehost is one of the most prominent, trusted web hosting providers used by bloggers, e-commerce businesses, and other types of websites. It is one of the web hosting services recommended by WordPress.org and Elementor. Its managed WordPress hosting service can be an option if you want to make a hosting migration or want to create a new website. The Bluehost managed WordPress hosting service allows you to put more focus on your business growth as you don’t need to take care of technical aspects related to site maintenance yourself. Bluehost does.

The managed WordPress hosting service from Bluehost is bundled with third-party services and tools like Jetpack, CodeGuard, SiteLock, and Cloudflare. Essential features like file access dan database access are available.

You can only install a single WordPress website on a Bluehost account. SiteGround, as a comparison, allows you to install multiple WordPress sites on your account (depending on the plan you use). If you put an emphasis on performance/speed, Bluehost is a great option. As you can see on the screenshot above, Bluehost earned the score of 99% on GTmetrix. Bluehost also has responsive technical support. Be it on Twitter or live chat on its website.

This page may contain affiliate links, which help support our project. Read our affiliate disclosure.
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