Changing the hosting to WPEngine, BlueHost or ANY OTHER HOST in the world will not affect the front facing display of the website at all it will affect your ease and ability of managing it well with proper tools that are easy to use from a non-Developers perspective.

In specific, WPEngine makes it easy to run 2 versions of your site so that you can have a LIVE and DEVELOPMENT staging areas that data can be pushed between to “bring changes live” from the development platform to the live production platform. What this specifically means is that they have created a system which makes it easy to 1) run two versions of the same site, one for public and one for development purposes only and 2) they have made it easy to push changes between the two versions. This is essential to running a successful site so that the public does not see a “half painted room”. when the site is under construction.

cPanel (the hosting tech BlueHost runs off of) is great *if you are going to use it as a developer* and many hosts run this same type platform because web developers will buy packages from them to run multiple websites on and the developers can be self sufficient with their use of the hosting technology. In your case you aren’t a web developer you are a non web-tech-type person running your site who all-in-all should be self sufficient when making changes and restoring backups in the case that a change screws everything up. cPanel (the hosting tech bluehost uses) is overkill in many areas being way to complex and many of the *features* of the system won’t be used and make simple tasks quite complex. They dont need to be….

Here is a list of other reasons you should use WPEngine vs BlueHost

1. Your ease of ability to, in one click, push changes from a Staging platform to a Live platform, as WPEngine makes this super easy Easily make AND restore backups from a One Click system.
2. Automates backups prompted by Plugin updates and theme updates. These are especially important as with WordPress it requires that someone do updates on a regular basis. When you do plugin and theme updates they have the possibility of breaking your site. If they do you have a very quick recourse to restore the site. Because these are automated IF an update screws up your site you have a very easy path to fixing it on your own with no other involvement.
3. With BlueHost backups are indeed possible and I can show you in 21 easy steps how to create and restore a back should you choose.
4. Provide a much sped up system for your site to be hosted within as it does not run cPanel but has the necessary tools to run a wordpress site.
5. Automates Security and caching Features.
6. A 24/7 on staff support team always available on chat (and email) on their website (via your account area) that can not only assist with hosting issues but also can help with WordPress trouble shooting should something be causing an issue with the site. I mention this as hosting is only as good as the support provided. You may never need it, if you do you will understand why. Consider the cost difference an “insurance policy” for your site. I have used blueHost hosting and frankly they are like the rest of the hosting support industry, they try to figure out if it is their platforms fault or not and attempt to quickly get you off the line … if they *think*, *that possibly*, a plugin or the theme is at fault for the issue being cause they will dismiss your issue and send you on to a developer to fix at your own cost with out actually investigating the issue too far. I have seen this time and time again and proven bluehost wrong and shown them where their fault lies in their own system after they sent me to someone else to resolve.
7. A managed ROLE based system to accessing the hosting account itself so that you can assign each contractor their own access and similarly remove that access if needed without having to change the “master” password on the account.
8. More than anything else WPEngine.com is a WordPress concentric based host. They don’t run cPanel, (the platform bluehost and many other hosts use) because you don’t need it for wordpress and it causes your site to run slow when it runs. WPEngine has put together a collection of wordpress hosting tools and created an interface easy to use and understand from the most basic level.

Yes WPEngine costs more than bluehost. I can find Cheaper hosts than bluehost which would only cost $3/year, would i recommend them to any client … never because the support they provide for them suck.

I hope this answers your questions and please let me know if I can provide further clarity! Let me know which direction you want to take and i’ll guide you to the next steps … Get 3 months free on WPEngine annual plans!