Company: DreamHost
Background: New Dream Network LLC owns the DreamHost web hosting brand. College undergraduate friends Dallas Bethune, Josh Jones, Michael Rodriguez, and Sage Weil founded the company. By 1997 DreamHost was hosting its first customer websites. DreamHost has grown since then, today hosting over 400,000 customers across 100 countries. The quartet of founders still runs the company, basing the business out of Brea, California. The company is passionate about Cloud resources, open-source software, customer service, and agile, reliable solutions. Services: Shared Hosting, VPS, Cloud Hosting, Managed WordPress Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Reseller Hosting, Email Hosting, Google Workspace, Design & Marketing, Website Management, Custom Web Development
Starting Price: $2.59/mo
Currency: USD
Visit Online: https://www.dreamhost.com
Review Summary & Ratings
DreamHost is a pretty good option regardless of the type of hosting you need. On a scale of 1 – 5, I’d give these guys a 4. They’re not the perfect hosting service, but I’ve yet to find any other that’s worthy of a stellar review. I especially highly recommend DreamHost for new WordPress website users.
Pros
Pros: What I Like About DreamHost
There is a lot to love about DreamHost and its products. It offers generous resource allocation, excellent reliability standards, a long list of available services, and much more.
1. DreamHost Shared Hosting Guarantees Reliability
In its Terms of Service (TOS) document, DreamHost offers Shared Hosting users a 100% uptime guarantee. That means it will compensate users for any outages in service as detailed in the terms and conditions.
While several web hosting companies are willing to offer a specific uptime guarantee, not many set it as high as 100%. A more typical figure would be 99.9%. The reality is that 100% is nearly impossible, but DreamHost is willing to make up for the difference to offer users greater peace of mind.
Guaranteed Uptime
1. DreamHost guarantees 100% uptime. A failure to provide 100% uptime will result in customer compensation pursuant to guidelines established herein.
2. Customer is entitled to compensation if Customer's web site, databases, email, FTP, SSH or webmail become unusable as a result of failure(s) in DreamHost systems for reasons other than previously announced scheduled maintenance, coding or configuration errors on the part of the Customer.
3. Customer will receive DreamHost credit equal to the Customer's current hosting cost for 1 (one) day of service for each 1 (one) hour (or fraction thereof) of service interruption, up to a maximum of 10% of customer's next pre-paid hosting renewal fee.
4. …
2. 97-day Full Refund for DreamHost Shared Hosting
DreamHost offers new customers a 97-day full refund on Shared Hosting Plans. You can cancel your plan and get your money back within this period. The only downside is the dedication of domain name fees, but that’s entirely reasonable since you get to keep the domain name.
Again, DreamHost goes above and beyond here. As a comparison, the typical money-back guarantee for most web hosts is 30 days.
3. SSD Drives on Most Hosting Plans Improve Performance
DreamHost equips almost all its servers with Solid State Drives (SSDs). This type of drive offers much better performance than traditional mechanical storage drives. The increased speed means your website will perform better on DreamHost servers in many ways.
Regular static websites will benefit from improved speeds in file reads. However, application-based websites like WordPress will see even more advantages. Faster speeds are essential for storage-heavy activities like database queries – something that WordPress does a lot.
4. DreamHost Academy Provides Comprehensive Advice
Although DreamHost Academy offers content that helps website owners, don’t mistake it for a standard support channel. Rather than trying to be an A-Z dictionary, the content gears toward three main focus areas all website owners should learn; To build, promote, and grow their websites.
Technical support is via two other channels; a generic knowledge base for self-help or direct contact with their support team. Incidentally, the knowledge base is comprehensive and offers suitable topics for beginners and the advanced.
5. Many Freebies at DreamHost
Despite web hosting plans starting at low prices, DreamHost is quite generous with freebies. While things like free SSL are supported, they help out in several other notable ways. For instance, you get generous resource allocation, automated WordPress migration, and access to a WordPress website builder.
One thing that stands out is that all Shared Hosting plans get a free domain name that includes domain name privacy. I’ve always hated having to pay extra for that whenever I register a domain name, so it’s a thoughtful and money-saving gesture from DreamHost.
6. WordPress is King at DreamHost
One of the best things about DreamHost is their “default” position on WordPress. It comes as a standard pre-install on their shared hosting packages and is part of their software installation deployer tool.
In addition, you’ll also find many Wordpress-centric features on the various hosting plans. Some examples of this include the automated WordPress site migration tool, WP website builder, and many user guides on the topic.
7. DreamHost Offers Many Useful Services
One of the best features of DreamHost is that it provides such a broad range of services. Aside from their core web hosting products, they offer everything else in between. From helping you build a custom website to SEO enhancements and marketing, you’ll find it all available here.
The wide range of products and services means you can stick with them over the entire life cycle of your website or business. That stability means you can spend the time focusing on growing the website instead of worrying about having to migrate as your needs expand.
Cons: DreamHost Drawbacks and Disadvantages
Like everything else in life, DreamHost isn’t perfect. Yet while some of its imperfections are annoying, I haven’t found anything that prevents me from recommending this host. Here are some things I’m less pleased about;
1. DreamHost Sometimes Doesn’t Include Email Services
Given how email is generally integrated into web hosting control panels, it boggles the mind that DreamHost occasionally makes it an optional extra. One example of this is their Shared Started plan, which has an introductory price of only $2.59 – but custom email costs an extra $1.67/mo.
Honestly, this is an annoyance more than a solid obstacle, and there’s no viable reason to cripple the cheapest shared plan in this manner.
2. Potentially Confusing Hosting Dashboard
One area of contention for DreamHost is its custom hosting dashboard. Hosts that offer cPanel and Plesk are the norm. For some reason, DreamHost decided otherwise, which results in occasional frustration for some users.
Again, this should not be a deal-breaker, but it does mean you run the risk of unfamiliarity with the layout of their custom dashboard.
DreamHost Plans and Pricing
DreamHost showcases one of the broadest range of hosting plans I’ve seen. I’ll cover the more commonly used types in this review, but you’ll find more on their website.
DreamHost Shared Hosting
Shared Hosting at DreamHost is kept simple. There are only two plans available for a broad market. Shared Starter is pretty limited and suitable for hosting single small websites. You can move to Shared Unlimited for more flexibility if you outgrow that.
| Plans | Starter | Unlimited |
|---|---|---|
| Websites | 1 | Unlimited |
| Storage | 50 GB | Unlimited |
| Databases | 6 | Unlimited |
| Free WP Migration | Yes | Yes |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Daily Backups | Automated | Automated |
| Emails | Optional | Yes |
| Free SSL | Yes | Yes |
| SSL | Let's Encrypt SSL | Standard SSL |
| Price | $2.59/mo | $3.95/mo |
| Order | Starter | Unlimited |
DreamHost VPS Hosting
DreamHost VPS plans are pretty standard and in line with industry norms. The one exceptional area is bandwidth. Most hosting companies will limit your bandwidth on VPS plans. DreamHost offers unlimited bandwidth – within their usage policies.
| Plans | Basic | Business | Professional | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Websites | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| RAM | 1 GB | 2 GB | 4 GB | 8 GB |
| Storage (SSD) | 30 GB | 60 GB | 120 GB | 240 GB |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Free SSL | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Emails | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| App Installer | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Price | $10/mo | $20/mo | $40/mo | $80/mo |
DreamHost Dedicated Hosting
Interestingly, DreamHost sports many Dedicated hosting plans. While there’s nothing remarkable about prices here, the choice is unusual for a hosting segment that’s pretty niche. Variation among plans is mostly in resource allocation and storage types (HDD or SSD).
| Plans | Standard 4 | Standard 8 | Standard 16 | Enhanced 16 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU Core/Thread | 4/8 | 4/8 | 4/8 | 12/24 |
| RAM | 4 GB | 8 GB | 16 GB | 16 GB |
| Storage | 1 TB HDD | 1 TB HDD | 1 TB HDD | 2 TB HDD |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Root Access | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| OPcache | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Price | $149/mo | $189/mo | $229/mo | $279/mo |
* Note: DreamHost offers nine pre-set Dedicated hosting plans – please check out plans #5 – #9 at their official website. The three highest dedicated plans come with SSD storage.
Alternatives to DreamHost
Compare DreamHost vs Bluehost
Like DreamHost, Bluehost is an industry stalwart that’s been around for ages. It also offers a solid WordPress-specific range of plants that rivals DreamHost. If you’re on the fence about these two hosting brands, here’s a quick comparison;
| Plans | DreamHost | BlueHost |
|---|---|---|
| Plan in Review | Shared Starter | Basic |
| Websites | 1 | 1 |
| Storage | 50 GB SSD | 50 GB SSD |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Free Domain | Yes | Yes |
| No | Yes | |
| Automated Backups | Yes | No |
| Website Builder | Yes | Yes |
| Price | $2.59/mo | $2.95/mo |
| Order | Visit | Visit |
I feel that there’s little to compare in the sense of which host offers more. However, some differences make DreamHost and Bluehost suit their own audience. Overall, both provide good value for money and are reputable brands.
Compare DreamHost vs HostGator
HostGator is known to offer some excellent entry-level hosting plans. This pricing makes it a good initial comparison with DreamHost. However, it has a love-hate relationship with many customers, and the gator isn’t for everyone.
| Features | HostGator | DreamHost |
|---|---|---|
| Plan in Review | Hatchling | Shared Starter |
| Websites | 1 | 1 |
| Storage | Unmetered | 50 GB SSD |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Free Domain | Yes | Yes |
| Yes | No | |
| Automated Backups | No | Yes |
| Website Builder | Yes | Yes |
| Signup Price | $2.75/mo | $2.59/mo |
| Order / Learn More | Visit | Visit |
HostGator offers lots more in the freebies department compared to DreamHost. Yet, DreamHost still excels in one vital web hosting area – reliability. Their 97-day money-back guarantee and 100% uptime assurance are good indicators of that.
Frequently Asked Questions on DreamHost
Yes, DreamHost is an excellent hosting brand. It hasn’t changed ownership since its founding. That is an excellent indicator of the quality and acceptance of the products and services this brand offers the public.
Yes, DreamHost is highly suitable for beginners. It has a range of entry-level plans for new, small websites. In addition, DreamHost provides lots of resources that can help new users build and grow their websites.
Yes, you can use Weebly with DreamHost. If you’ve bought your domain name at DreamHost, simply point it towards your Weebly account. You do this by setting your DNS records and creating custom “A” records.
DreamHost is an extremely reliable hosting service. Aside from a 97-day money-back guarantee, the company also spells out a 100% uptime guarantee in their TOS. If the service goes down, they’ll pay you for every hour of outage.
DreamHost VPS is flexible and reliable. There are four plans to choose from, each with varying amounts of allocated dedicated resources. If you need more options, the company also offers Cloud hosting as a viable alternative.
Final Thoughts For My DreamHost Review
DreamHost is a pretty good option regardless of the type of hosting you need. On a scale of 1 – 5, I’d give these guys a 4. They’re not the perfect hosting service, but I’ve yet to find any other that’s worthy of a stellar review. I especially highly recommend DreamHost for new WordPress website users.
