Going with Bluehost shared hosting after reading the word “Unlimited”? Well, there is a small twist. There are actually not one but multiple Bluehost limits you need to know about.
The standard restrictions are for inodes (number of files/folders), storage, RAM, etc. However, Bluehost even limits the number of tables allowed in a database. Some limitations are per account while others are for a specific resource.
This guide covers all the hidden limits set by Bluehost for shared hosting.
Bluehost CPU and RAM limitations
A normal cPanel interface looks something like this where you can see the CPU usage and other statistics.
However, Bluehost went a step backward and removed the CPU statistics section which you can see below.
This is what the Bluehost stats look like. As you can see there is no CPU usage stat. Many people think they have stopped tracking CPU usage. However, it’s definitely not so.
Bluehost tech support team has indicated that an account is allowed roughly 8% of the CPU cycles. They also admitted that they use multiple factors (some of which are out of your control) to determine when to throttle the CPU.
In some rare cases, they allow up to 20% of the CPU usage which is the hard limit.
Bluehost email limits
In this section, let’s talk about Bluehost email limits which are email sending and storage limits.
Bluehost email sending limit
Bluehost has enough email spending limits for shared hosting services. They allow up to 150 emails per hour per account. So, you will rarely run out of this limit.
Bluehost email storage limit
There is no Bluehost email storage limit as such. You will only have to ensure that you don’t exceed the total storage allocated to you in the web hosting account. Bluehost’s base plan has 10 GB SSD storage.
So, you need to make sure that total disk space is not exceeded.
You can further allocate a specific storage limit for each mailbox. Just go to cPanel Email > Email accounts and then click on the “Manage” button next to your preferred email.
You will see the “Allocated storage space” option.
Along with storage, you also need to keep in mind the inode limits.
Bluehost storage limits & File Count
The storage limit starts at 10 GB SSD for the Bluehost basic plan and goes up to 100 GB SSD for the pro plan.
On the other hand, there is a very low inode count. Bluehost only allows up to 50,000 inodes limits per cPanel account. This is a soft limit. You can still have up to 200,000 inodes.
If you exceed the 200k limit, it will result in suspension.
When it comes to VPS, Bluehost has an inode limit of 1,000,000 files.
Now, let’s talk about what is inode. Inode is a count of every file, folder, media, or even email. So, let’s say, you have 500 files, 7 folders, 25 images, and 63 emails, then your total inode usage is 500+7+25+63 = 595 inode usage.
Database Size and Number
To begin with, Bluehost has a limit of 20 MySQL databases.
They have an overall account limit of 5000 tables and 10 GB usage. So, if the total number of database usage exceeds 5000 tables or 10 GB storage, your account is in violation of the terms.
Further, they also have a database storage limit of 5 GB for a single database. So, your single database must not exceed more than 5 GB in size. The same limits apply for PostgreSQL too.
Bluehost limits for number of websites and domains
The basic plan allows up to 10 websites while the pro plan allows up to 100 websites (or domains).
Bluehost allows up to 25 subdomains for the basic plan. The alias domains are the same as the allowed websites.
Conclusion
Bluehost claims to offer “UNLIMITED” resources. However, it’s NEVER unlimited. Bluehost limits are mentioned above in the article.
If your website is generating decent revenue, it’s highly recommended to go with a premium cloud service such as Cloudways where you will get guaranteed resources. There is no overselling and you will get super-fast speed along with better performance.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
How to increase the download limit in WordPress on Bluehost?
You can optimize WordPress by increasing the memory limit. Just add “define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘256M’);” in the wp-config file. To do it in Bluehost, you only have the option to upgrade the plan.
What is the default Bluehost upload file size limit?
The default PHP limit is 50 MB.
How to increase Bluehost PHP memory limit?
Head over to the file manager and open the home directory. You will find a php.ini file. Right-click on it and hit “code edit”. You can make changes in the memory lines to increase the Bluehost PHP memory limit.
