About a month ago I received a private message from a guy who asked for my advice on choosing a hosting that will be faster than the shared hosting they were using at that time (BlueHost). Unfortunately, the emails that I sent to the guy stay undelivered (probably because of the issues on the guy’s hosting side).
That’s why I decided to publish my reply publicly. I’ve removed all the sensitive information, but left the nuances that can be useful for my readers in a similar situation.
In addition to my reply that I publish in this article as a short case study, I also add some notes to widen the context and make the situation about “bad hosting – great reviews” clearer.
Hi Michael (or Raah),
We’ve recently launched our website.
We could really use your help! We have very little technical ability and we hired someone else to create our website through fiverr.
Prior to our website’s launch, we didn’t have a website and needed emails/domain and went with a google drive thing where we bought our domain. Six months later we bought Bluehost WordPress Shared hosting for our website because it was affiliated with google and we thought that would be easier/good.
There are a ton of positive reviews on Bluehost, which now surprises us! We are not happy with the loading speeds of our website at all!
We had our designer host it on his own domain a short while ago (who uses namecheap) and it was literally loading twice as fast. As far as I know, namecheap isn’t particularly fast either, but it was still much faster. We basically want to move away from Bluehost, as we’re still 11 days within their 30-day money back guarantee, and your helpful website popped up when searching for alternatives.
Here’s what we’re looking for:
1. Technically, I’m not very sound. So we would require some assistance from the hosting we pick. Since our domain is from google (drive) and the hosting is through Bluehost. I’m not sure how this would work. Migration support?
2. Do you suppose the loading speed would be faster/improved? As you can see, the website is very slow currently. We did try it before on our designer’s hosting and it was much faster.
3. We have a webshop that offers digital purchases (downloads). We are currently within 25GB of web space, but expect to be around 50GB after about a year. Since we might be in need of more web space within a year or two and we would prefer not to keep moving hosts, we would like a host that has higher tiers available.
Reading through your lists and doing my own googling, I’m trying to find a host that’s fast, has a bigger amount of Web Space available, and that could help out with the migration of the website. We’re amateurs at this stuff!
As of now we’re we’re considering Cloudways or Geek Storage’s plans. We’re looking for the best possible price/quality relativity and were hoping you would have golden advice for us.
Cheers,
And here goes my reply:
Thanks for reaching out to me.
Yeah, Bluehost is not good and lots of people with no prior hosting experience get into their marketing pitfalls. (My note: see the comments on this page for lots of examples)
As you are still in the money back period, I strongly advise to move away from BH. Many hosts (even mediocre ones) are better than BH in many ways.
Let me answer your questions/concerns one my one:
> 1. Technically, I’m not very sound. So we would require some assistance from the hosting we pick. Since our domain is from google (drive) and the hosting is through Bluehost. I’m not sure how this would work. Migration support?
If you acquired your domain not at Bluehost (you mentioned Google Drive but I’m not sure I understand which domain registrar you mean, but it’s not important as long as it’s not Bluehost) and you did not transfer your domain to Bluehost, there should be no major issues with migrating. Many hosts, including GeekStorage and Cloudways offer free migration. It means the new hosting support takes your current hosting credentials and they take care of moving your sites to them. In most cases you are not technically involved in the process.
> 2. Do you suppose the loading speed would be faster/improved? As you can see, the website is very slow currently. We did try it before on our designer’s hosting and it was much faster.
I expect that the speed on the hosts like GeekStorage and Cloduways will be faster than on Bluehost. I’m not sure which plan with Namecheap your designer used, but anyway Bluhost is a slow host for the dollar paid. If your designer uses a shared hosting plan or WordPress hosting plan with Namecheap, then no doubt GeekStorage (as well as Cloudways) will be faster or at least comparatively fast than it was with Namecheap. And it’s much faster than with Bluehost.
> 3. We have a webshop that offers digital purchases (downloads). We are currently within 25GB of web space, but expect to be around 50GB after about a year. Since we might be in need of more web space within a year or two and we would prefer not to keep moving hosts, we would like a host that has higher tiers available.
Well, the large disk space is something that can be an issue even if a hosting says their plan includes unlimited disk space. Shared hosts usually watch how you use their disk space and forbid using it as file storage. Since you have downloadables, it can be an issue if you use so called “unlimited disk space” options. But as soon as you use your hosting within the explicit disk space limit (on the limited plans), you are fine.
GeekStorage has explicit limit of 40 GB on PX-3 plan.
It’s “ulimited” plans can handle 50 GB.
I’ve just contacted their support (“What about 50 GB on your Business Plan? Can you please let me know if it’s suitable? (this is e-commerce store with downloadables).”) and they said “50GB usage would be fine as long as it is within our terms of service (not to be used for file storage/backups, etc.).”)
So you should be fine with their unlimited Business plan ($10.76/mo when paid yearly, this price does not change on renewal). As regards performance you should be fine as well.
I would hesitate suggesting you Cloudways as it has more risks regarding technical support in future.
Other alternatives that sound good to me in your case is MDD hosting (starting from Cloud-2 plan, which is $14-20/mo depending on your renewal billing term). I have just contacted them and they confirmed 50GB is not a problem for your site.
Another reliable option I’d consider is Veerotech (SSD-50 plan). But its pricing for 50 GB is $25-30/mo. It’s more powerful than MDD’s Cloud-2 or GeekStorage (Professional plan).
I think that the performance of GeekStorage Professional plan should be enough for you after all, and it’s okay when your site grows to 50+ GB in size. It’s the most affordable among the reliable options. MDD, Veerotech and even Cloudways are more expensive for your case.
All the mentioned hosts are in the list of my recommended hosts.
As a resume:
- If I had budget $25-30/mo, then I’d go with Veerotech (SSD-50).
- If I wanted to go the cheaper way, my choice would be GeekStorage Professional plan or PX-3 (and it’s actually the most reasonable option considering you tried Namecheap and it was fine for you, which means GeekStorage speed must be totally okay in your case).
- MDD’s Cloud-2 would be my third choice.
- And I’d consider Cloudways if the other mentioned options would not work for some reason.
Feel free to let me know if you have other questions.
Regards,
Michael
As I’ve mentioned, I could not deliver my reply to the guy. And consequently, I did not know what hosting the guy finally ended up with.
If you are interested in Bluehost alternatives and particularly in the mentioned hosts, have a look at my short reviews of these hosts:
Besides, here’s another article that focuses on SiteGround’s alternatives taking price and the values for the price as a basis for considering. I don’t really compare BlueHost and SiteGround, but the suggested alternative hosts in the article would be quite applicable to the situation with Bluehost too.
You can download a PDF version of this article (464 KB):
BTW, I respect your privacy, and of course I don't send spam, affiliate offers or trade your emails. What I send is information that I consider useful.
