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DreamHost Web Hosting Review – One of The Leaders of The Pack

Updated: May 14, 2020 by tbwhs

Name: DreamHost
Plans: Shared, WordPress, VPS, Dedicated.
Website: www.Dreamhost.com
Summary: DreamHost is a popular choice for web hosting. They have 400,000+ customers located all around the world. These DreamHost web hosting reviews will show you what others are saying about them.

DreamHost.com
{{ reviewsOverall }} / 5 Users Score (22 votes)
Overall3.3
Reliability3.2
Server Speed3.2
Customer Support3.2
Features3.3
Cost/Value3.2
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DreamHost Logo

DreamHost is a company that was formed in 1997. Four friends in college that were passionate about technology decided to form a web hosting company to help set the bar high for webmasters that were looking for a quality web hosting company. DreamHost is a powerhouse in the web hosting industry much like GoDaddy, Hostgator, and BlueHost. They have over 400,000 customers, 1.5 million websites hosted with them, and over 750,000 active WordPress installations.

So, when I review any web hosting company I like to look at all the plans they offer, their features, performance, uptime, and then their customer support. At the end of my DreamHost review, I like to write a summary that gives you an overview of the company. I will then either recommend the company or point you elsewhere. Now let’s get started with this DreamHost review so you can decide if they will meet your hosting needs.

DreamHost Features

One thing I like about DreamHost pricing is that it is upfront. You don’t see “starting at” in tiny print in front of the prices for each package.  DreamHost offers a variety of exceptional benefits and features. They are currently offering shared, WordPress, VPS, and dedicated plans.

Shared Plans

DreamHost does offer only 1 shared plan.  Depending on how you pay your bill is going to determine the price you will pay.  For a month to month contract it’s going to cost $10.95/month, for one year it’s going to cost $9.95/month, and if you sign up with them for 3 years it’s going to cost you $7.95/month.  A couple things I do like about DreamHost is you get a free SSL certificate when you sign up with them, there are no setup fees, and you do get domain protection for free.

DreamHost does use the whole unlimited sales pitch, though.  They do clarify it in their unlimited policy page, though.  Your MySQL databases can’t be over a couple of GB, email accounts can’t use more than 2 GB of bandwidth per month, and you can’t use an excess of CPU or RAM on their shared plan or you will be asked to move your website to a VPS server.

DreamHost has a little higher price tag for their shared plans.  Other web hosting companies like InterServer and WebHostingHub are cheaper.

WordPress Plan

DreamHost does offer a WordPress plan for $16.95/month. This plan is called the “DreamPress” plan. You do get 30 GB of SSD storage, too. This plan is up to five times faster than DreamHost’s shared servers because the servers that host your WordPress sites use Varnish Cache.  This puts an extra layer of caching between your website and helps with performance substantially. Overall, this WordPress plan will perform like a VPS server. You also get these features too:

  • Can support 2.1 million visitors per month.
  • Servers only have WordPress installation (no other applications).
  • Unlimited email accounts.
  • No restrictions on themes or plugins you can use.

VPS Plans

If yours is a rapidly growing business, this package should be able to keep up with you. It’s also the one you want if you have a lot of traffic on your website, or have complex apps. Simply put you can get a VPS for $15, what’s not to love about that? The other packages for VPS go anywhere from $30-200/month.  Here is a breakdown of their prices for VPS servers:

  • $15/month (300 MB)
  • 30/month (600 MB)
  • $50/month (1,000 MB)
  • $100/month (2,000 MB)
  • $200/month (4,000 MB)

Dedicated Plans

Dream Host offers dedicated web hosting which is as follows:

  • New Moon 2 is $109/month.
  • Half Moon 2 is $115/month.
  • Half Moon 4 is 125/month.
  • Blue Moon 4 is $149/month.
  • Blue Moon 8 is $189/month.
  • Blue Moon 16 is $229/month.

The dedicated hosting package has 6 levels, ranging from $109 to $249 per month. The features range from 2 to 4 cores, from 2 to 12 GB, and from 500 GB to 1 TB of disk space.

Control Panel

DreamHost uses their own custom control panel.  I got the chance to explore it’s functions.  They only allow Debian Linux at this time so if your looking for Windows you’re going to have to look elsewhere.  The unique control panel allows customers to have complete control over every aspect of their account.  One click software installation is at your fingertips. This saves time as well as a great deal of money. The one click installer virtually takes care of all the technical work for you. Therefore, you can utilize your time taking care of other business matters.  DreamHost offers cost effective web hosting which is perfect for bloggers, web designers and small business owners.

All customers are offered a 97 day money back guarantee.

DreamHost Uptime

Uptime is always one very important factor you should strongly consider before signing up with a web hosting company. Some host like MochaHost and Network Solutions have had major issues with uptime over the years. Let’s face it, the more our website is down the more money we are losing, and if we rely on our website to generate money any downtime literally cost us money. So, how is DreamHost’s uptime?

DreamHost does have a 100% uptime policy. Typically, I am not a fan of host that will tell you their network is going to be up 100% of the time. However, their TOS page states that your website will be up 99.99% of the time. If ever you have any downtime DreamHost will credit your account. They will refund your money and divide your hours by your monthly bill and compensate you for the actual minutes/hours of downtime.

DreamHost does do a wonderful job at updating their clients if there are any problems with their servers, security updates, DNS problems, etc.  They have a special section at http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/ which you can check on if you’re having any problems.

I have taken the time to search the internet for articles and blog post that complain about downtime with DreamHost. From the research I have done on DreamHost it looks like their customers are praising their uptime. They do have a decent uptime policy and you will be compensated if ever you have any downtime.

Performance

When you develop and maintain a website you want the website to load quickly. A lot of times web hosting companies have issues with performance because they are using outdated hardware or try to cram way too many customers on a single server. So, how good is DreamHost’s performance?

Excellent is one word that comes to mind when I think of DreamHost’s performance. They use SSD hard drives and limit the number of customers on their servers. Their team does a wonderful job at monitoring websites on their servers and make sure that websites that are using to many resources are move to a VPS or dedicated server.

From the research, I have done it looks like DreamHost gets very good feedback from their clients about their performance. Nearly all of their customers are praising them in that aspect of their business. Therefore, I can firmly stand behind DreamHost and tell you that their performance is top notch.

DreamHost Customer Support

As webmasters, we need to rely on customer support if ever we should have any problems with our websites.  I can’t stress enough the importance of using a host that knows what they are doing and handles issues in a timely manner.  So, how good is DreamHost’s customer support?

In one simple word, great!  One of the best-personalized support teams I have ever worked with over the years.  The technical knowledge of DreamHost support staff is at a very high level.  In plain English, this means they know what they are talking about and pretty much can troubleshoot any kind of problem you have.  How can you get ahold of DreamHost?

Live Chat

The best way to get ahold of DreamHost is through their live chat feature.  This is my preferred way to get ahold of them.  It only takes under a minute to get in contact with an agent.  DreamHost does offer live chat customer support.  It’s available 24/7, too.

Support Ticket

DreamHost does have a support ticket system in place to help assist their customers.  You can contact them anytime you want and they typically respond to your tickets in 1-4 hours.

Telephone Support

There is no telephone support with DreamHost.  A number of a very dependable host like NameCheap and GlowHost have also completely done away with telephone support, too.  It works for DreamHost too so I don’t have any issues with them not offering any telephone support.

Knowledge-base & Community

DreamHost does have a very active community, too.  They have a forum where their administrators troubleshoot problems and actively help out their paying customers.  Also, DreamHost does have a Wiki based knowledge-base which covers any problems from PHP, SSL certificates, security, troubleshooting, advanced topics & customization, dedicated hosting, domain registrations, DreamPress, email, MySQL shared hosting, VPS hosting, WordPress, cloud servers, and account management.

I have done a lot of research on DreamHost's customer support and the feedback seems to be very positive.  I’m not stating that everyone that has worked with DreamHost has been blown away by their customer support.  They do have several complaints from their past customers, but every company has a handful of complaints from novice webmasters.   Therefore, I can say with 100% confidence that DreamHost has excellent customer support and I can rate them very highly on tbwhs.com.

DreamHost Web Hosting Review Summary

So, do I recommend that you sign up with DreamHost? Yes! They have almost half a million happy customers and are one of the most trustworthy hosting providers on the market. Their plans for shared hosting are a little higher than other companies, but their VPS plans are cheaper than other companies in the industry. Managed WordPress plans are cheaper than WP Engine, Traffic Planet Hosting, and Page.ly, and their dedicated and cloud plans are also cheaper than other hosts.

Their uptime is fantastic and you shouldn’t ever really have to worry about downtime. DreamHost does use SSD hard drives with all of their hosting plans and websites that are hosted with DreamHost do perform much faster than websites hosted with other hosting companies.

Customer support is DreamHost’s strongest point. They do a wonderful job at answering your questions and their technical knowledge is on a much higher level than companies like 1and1 and A Small Orange. If you’re considering hosting with them I would go ahead and give you the green light, because I’m confident that you’ll be happy with them.

However, if you’re on a tight budget and only want a shared plan I would recommend you read my WebHostingHub review. They are very cheap for shared plans and I have been working with them for over 8 years.

Also, if not having telephone support really bothers you or you want to use cPanel and you want a dependable VPS and dedicated plan I would encourage that you read my InMotion Hosting review, LiquidWeb review, or RoseHosting review. Those three companies are very solid dependable companies, too.

Research on DreamHost.

“Positive”

PCmag.com

I always enjoy reading content on Pcmag.com because their writers have a lot of technical knowledge.  Fammida Y. Rashid and Jeffrey L. Wilson have published an article that talks about their experience with Dreamhost.  They go into a lot of details about the hosting plans that they offer, the process of getting started, using WordPress, email, e-commerce, security, features, and customer support.

They have a number of pros and cons in which they discuss in their article.  Here are some of the highlights:

Pros

  • Linux and Windows servers.
  • Great security.
  • Features.
  • Great domain management tools.
  • Best money-back guarantee.

Cons

  • No website builder.
  • Pricy setup fees with their monthly plans.
  • The first time you sign up with them it takes a bit.
  • Slow customer support.

In this article, DreamHost is rated 4.5 out 5.  They have obtained an “editor’s choice” award.  Have all the features and the prices are very affordable.  They are an excellent choice for those webmasters that are intermediate to advanced.  Highly recommended in this article.

“Negative”

Better Business Bureau

DreamHost.com is accredited with the Better Business Bureau. They have been with the BBB since 10/03/2013. They have received a D-, though. There are 22 closed complaints. They have 2 advertising/sales issues, 7 billing/collections issues, and 13 problems with products/services.

“Neutral”

TopTenReviews.com

TopTenReviews.com is a site that reviews anything from gadgets, software, businesses, and yes you have guessed it they have a section for web hosting companies.  They have reviewed a number of web hosting companies over the years.  This is the reason I feel I should include them in my neutral section or articles I have found on DreamHost.

From this review on DreamHost state that they have been declining for years.  There are a number of pros and cons this review discusses in this article.  The pros and cons are down below:

Pros

  • 97-day money back guarantee.
  • 50 GB of free backup.

Their uptime policy is one of the best I have seen.  Meaning you can get a refund for 97 days.  This is longer than InMotion or Fatcow.  I do like how they have 50 GB of free backup.  A lot of another web host like WebHostingHub will charge you a small fee for site backups.

Cons

  • No telephone customer service.
  • Frequent downtime.
  • Quick to suspend you.

I should note that DreamHost does have a rather strict “user agreement license”.  This means that they block your visitors from accessing server resources.  They will be quick to ban you for copyrighted material.  Commonly, they ask you to upgrade to a higher server if you are using too many resources.  To put it in simple terms, if your site has issues or problems they are very quick to suspend your account to protect their other clients on their servers.

They do have a really good knowledge base.  However, there is no way to get ahold of them with telephone support.  They handle each question by email, live chat, or support tickets.

This review also talks about downtime that is hit or miss.  Meaning smaller sites probably won’t have a ton of downtime, but larger sites seem to go down frequently.

Toptenreviews.com does rate Dreamhost 6.1 out of 10.  Meaning they are not horribly bad, but they do recommend other host over them.


DreamHost Blog Post

DreamHost actually wrote a blog post on May 4, 2006.  The title of the post is “Web Hosting’s Dirty Laundry”.   I know seems like ages ago.  I did want to include this article in my neutral section because they do make some great points in this article.  As we all know there is information on the internet that is misleading.  Believe it or not, you can’t believe everything you read online.  Some hosting review sites are thin and charge companies to say positive things about them on their sites.  This is not what I do at all.  In fact, I will never ask for a payment or anything to review a host.  I write my honest opinions on any hosting company I review.  People can agree and disagree with me and that is perfectly fine.

However, DreamHost actually was contacted by Hosting-Review.com and they wanted a payment of 3,200 to include them on their featured program (per month).  The goal here was to bring in new clients for DreamHost and earn an affiliate commission.  There are serious of emails that DreamHost published which shows how it works.  It’s actually sad that Hosting-Review.com does these smoke and mirrors tricks.

This is a very interesting read, though.  Furthermore, I will never include anything from the site on Hosting-Review.com because I believe they are running an unethical review site.  I do agree 110% with DreamHost on this post!

Interviews with DreamHost customers.

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All content on tbwhs.com are opinions and not facts. I have thoroughly reviewed each company and then provide my personal opinions on them. It’s up to you as the consumer to do your due diligence and do more research if you feel something might be inaccurate.

Filed Under: Recommended

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