Established in 1996, Dreamhost has cemented its legacy as a pioneer in the web hosting industry. Today, it proudly powers over 1.5 million websites, blogs, and applications, with a comprehensive range of services that include shared, VPS, dedicated, Cloud, and WordPress hosting plans.
As a hosting review expert/website owner myself, it made sense I reviewed Dreamhost – one of the most popular hosting providers in the world. Dreamhost is known for its speed and reliability, and over 1.5 million domains trust them. In the rest of this piece, I’ll share my thoughts on the host’s pricing, overall features, performance, ease of use, and support.
DreamHost delivers on its promise of comprehensive hosting solutions. Their basic shared plans are packed with value-added features that ensure optimal performance and user convenience. Customers receive a free SSL certificate and domain, the advantage of SSD storage, unmetered bandwidth, and SSH access. Furthermore, the pre-installed WordPress, automated migrations, and the Dreamhost custom control panel streamline the hosting experience, making it both robust and user-friendly.
Reviews across various platforms highlight the trust that users place in Dreamhost. On HostAdvice, they boast a commendable score of 4.3 based on 290 reviews. Trustpilot mirrors this positive sentiment, giving them an impressive 4.7 from a whopping 4664reviews. Additionally, their dedication to service quality and customer satisfaction is underscored by an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau.
DreamHost has demonstrated unwavering commitment and excellence in web hosting, making them a top pick for both novices and seasoned webmasters seeking dependable hosting solutions.
DreamHost
Dreamhost is a reliable hosting company amid a sea of them. With unmatched service since 1996, they ensure your website has top-tier functionality and reliable performance. Explore Dreamhost and maximize your online presence.
Offers other website and marketing-specific services
Cons
Not the best support – limited time
Not privately owned
Storage is not the best on the market
Rating Breakdown
With the huge number of hosting providers on the market, it’s important that we have a standardized way to compare them. At HostAdvice, we created a hosting provider rating methodology to do just that.
So irrespective of the kind of hosting or features a particular provider offers, our methodology evaluates every important factor and scores each host based on how they perform.
Parameter
Score
Why we gave this score
PRICES
9.5
Dreamhost offers hosting plans that are pretty affordable compared to other providers and a rather unusual 97-day money-back guarantee. I gave them a 9.5 because you can choose to commit to monthly, 1-year, or 3-year billing packages.
FEATURES
9.0
Vast hosting kinds, CloudFlare-compatibility, SSD servers, free domain and SSL, pre-installed apps and WordPress, a custom control panel, and other features make Dreamhost feature-heavy. I’d give them a 9.0 because some addons are not free.
PERFORMANCE
8.0
300 ms response time, 99.9% uptime, SSD servers and storage, and great load times make the host among the high performers. I’d give them a 8.0 because there are still faster hosts.
USER FRIENDLINESS
9.0
Beginner-friendly Dreamhost control panel, intuitive UI, and 1-click installs make the host very user friendly. I’d give them a 9.5 because the custom control panel makes them very easy to use.
SUPPORT
8.5
Live chat, ticketing, phone support, discussion forums, and a vast knowledgebase. However, I’d give them a 8.5 because most of these are only available for existing customers.
Dreamhost Prices & Plans – 2024
Dreamhost offers shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud and WordPress plans (managed and unmanaged). They also offer email hosting, a website builder, and a unique suite of pro services – web design, marketing, management etc.
On most of their plans, Dreamhost offers a remarkable 97-day money back guarantee – enough time to decide if you like their services and the right to cancel anytime.
And when you finally decide to commit to Dreamhost, you can pay via a credit card, debit card or Paypal.
Dreamhost’s unlimited shared plan is the most recommended as you get everything from the ‘starter’ plus unlimited websites to host and unlimited storage… for the same price range.
TipTip: Dreamhost’s shared hosting plans are best for websites that don’t get a lot of traffic – new or entry-level websites. They give you the most resources on a budget. Note that the prices specified are for Dreamhost’s 1-year packages.
I’d personally recommend Dreamhost’s VPS business plans if you’re just getting started with VPS hosting. 60 GB SSD storage and unmetered bandwidth at $27.50/month.
TipTip: Dreamhost’s VPS plans are ideal for businesses that experience traffic spikes and need scalable resources – fluctuating server demand. These VPS plans allow you to quickly increase or decrease the resources you need.
I personally recommend Dreamhost’s standard dedicated hosting plan if you’re just getting started with dedicated resources. You get 1 TB HDD, uncapped bandwidth, and 4 GB RAM in an Intel Xeon 4-Core 8-Thread.
Dreamhost offers three pricing tiers each under its standard and enhanced dedicated plans charged based on the amount of RAM you get.
For standard:
4 GB RAM – 1 TB HDD storage – $149
8 GB RAM – 1 TB HDD storage – $189
16 GB RAM – 1 TB HDD storage – $229
For enhanced:
16 GB RAM – 2 TB HDD – $279
32 GB RAM – 2 TB HDD – $339
64 GB RAM – 2 TB HDD – $379
16 GB RAM – 240 GB SSD – $279
32 GB RAM – 240 GB SSD – $329
64 GB RAM – 240 GB SSD – $379
TipTip: Dreamhost’s dedicated hosting plans are best for businesses that get a lot of traffic and hence experience high data demand. Businesses that also handle sensitive data – e.g: customer payment methods, etc.
Dreamhost’s entry level and most affordable WordPress plans. I’d recommend the enhanced that gives you unmetered storage and bandwidth for the same price as the most basic.
TipTip: Entry-level WordPress plans best for new websites or domains that handle little traffic.
Features
Free domain and SSL
1-click installs
97-day money back guarantee
Unmetered bandwidth and storage
Custom control panel
Dreamhost has some rather special features but among all these, the most prominent is probably its customized control panel – Dreamhost does not offer cPanel but rather, a custom-built control panel for user friendliness. Dreamhost also offers a remarkable 97-day money back guarantee on its plans.
Dreamhost also offering VPS-powered WordPress plans is not something you see everyday.
DreamHost
Dreamhost is a reliable hosting company amid a sea of them. With unmatched service since 1996, they ensure your website has top-tier functionality and reliable performance. Explore Dreamhost and maximize your online presence.
If you’re considering hosting your website on Dreamhost, it’s important that you know how well your website will perform – as a result of how the host’s servers perform.
Some important performance metrics to measure are the host’s server response time, uptime, and fully loaded time.
The quicker the host’s servers respond when a user visits your website, the quicker your web pages will load and be available to the user. This will mean longer engagement times, less bounce, and more conversions for you.
As a standard, Google recommends a fully loaded time between 1-2s. 99.9% uptime has become the industry’s standard and Dreamhost assures you of that.
To measure their server performance, I tested metrostyle.com – a domain hosted on Dreamhost – on GTMetrix and these were the results:
The server response time averaged around 250 ms and had a fully loaded time of 2.1s. The host also had a very impressive overall performance of 99%:
DreamHost
Dreamhost is a reliable hosting company amid a sea of them. With unmatched service since 1996, they ensure your website has top-tier functionality and reliable performance. Explore Dreamhost and maximize your online presence.
To talk to a real person, you will have to be a paid customer, otherwise you only have a bot at your disposal.
While they have their place, their replies will of course be rigid. Via the bot chat, you can also create a support ticket and email thread to an agent who’ll respond in less than 24 hours.
Phone support
Phone support is also only available for paid customers.
Discussion forums
For some reason, Dreamhost’s discussion forums redirect to knowledgebase page. My guess is they’re also available only when you’re a paid customer and can be accessed via the control panel.
Knowledgebase
Dreamhost has a well-stacked knowledgebase and help desk equipped with a search engine to give you a library of answers to whatever questions you may have about their packages, how-tos, etc.:
User-Friendliness – Ease of use
Registration
Registering on Dreamhost is as simple as buying one of their plans. Using their shared plans as an example, simply click the ‘Get started’ and then ‘Sign up now’.
The chat portal seems connected with real humans (when you’re about to pay lol).
You’ll be asked whether you want to register a new domain, have an existing domain, or will get to that later:
You can also choose how you want to pay – monthly, yearly, or triennially.
Next, you’ll be asked to fill in your details – payment details (card or Paypal), billing info, your account info (name and email), and whether you want to add extra features like email and Dreamhost protection.
Proceed to checkout and you have your account ready!
DreamHost Control Panel
Dreamhost doesn’t support cPanel – they made it super clear. Instead, they offer a custom-built control panel. From here, you can manage your domains, mail, FTP & SSH, Support and much more!
So there’s no separate panel for the more technical stuff. Everything can be controlled from one dashboard, making the host incredibly intuitive.
Installing WordPress on Dreamhost
Dreamhost’s WordPress plans come with WordPress pre-installed and what’s more? You get automatic WordPress updates, free auto WordPress migrations, and the WP website builder.
Also, Dreamhost offers a 1-click WordPress installer, however, to use it, your website must be fully hosted on Dreamhost – i.e not parked, mirrored, redirected, or DNS only.
To install WordPress in the WordPress panel, click ‘Install WordPress’ then ‘Learn more and install’. Fill in the ‘install to’, ‘select database’, ‘deluxe install’, and then add the ‘WP website builder’.
Click ‘Install it for me now’.
Add an email account with Dreamhost
Do note that Dreamhost’s shared starter plan doesn’t include email and you’ll have to pay for it separately. However, on the shared unlimited and every other plan, you get unlimited emails.
To add an email to your domain on Dreamhost, in the panel, click ‘Manage emails’. Click ‘Create new email address’ and then fill in the details:
Choose an address, mailbox name, password (pick or auto-generate), set disk storage, choose whether you want daily warnings… and voila! Your email is ready.
Dreamhost Alternatives
FastComet
FastComet is a web hosting company known for its comprehensive hosting solutions that cater to a wide range of needs, from shared hosting and cloud VPS to dedicated servers. One of its standout features is the deployment of SSD-only storage across all hosting plans, which significantly enhances website performance and loading times.
FastComet also prides itself on offering a global network of data centers, allowing customers to choose locations closest to their audience for optimized speed and reliability. This is coupled with free Cloudflare CDN integration, ensuring even faster content delivery worldwide.
Bluehost is a well-known web hosting provider, famous for its strong WordPress integration and hosting services for both businesses and individuals.
The inclusion of a custom hosting dashboard alongside the traditional cPanel interface allows you to intuitivly manage your website. Bluehost also emphasizes security, offering features such as resource protection, secure shell access, and spam protection to safeguard websites against potential threats. With competitive pricing and scalability options, Bluehost caters to a broad audience, from those building their first website to businesses requiring advanced hosting solutions.
Dreamhost is indeed a great host with several unique features in its offering – a 97-day guarantee, VPS plans specifically for WordPress, and cPanel-free user interface that makes it especially great for hosting newbies.
So, do I recommend Dreamhost? I do. My only qualms with them is their support could be much better. No live chat or phone support unless you’re a paid customer. If you’ll be needing a lot of help, they may not be the best choice for you as their contact hours are limited.
Asides from those, I like how their plans are straight to the point when compared to other hosting providers on the market.
DreamHost
Dreamhost is a reliable hosting company amid a sea of them. With unmatched service since 1996, they ensure your website has top-tier functionality and reliable performance. Explore Dreamhost and maximize your online presence.
DreamHost excels in user-friendly web hosting and strong customer support, making it a favorite among many. However, if you need more advanced features or different hosting types, our guide to the 7 Best DreamHost Alternatives offers tailored choices that could better suit your expanding needs.
I was a Dreamhost customer and had used my Dreamhost account for doing offsite backups for many years. I wasn't backing up excessive amounts of data, but there were many files which were created by me which were irreplaceable. After I had a storage failure at home I went to retrieve the files but they weren't there. Apparently some while before I was sent an email to tell me that I couldn't use their services for backups and that they would delete them. I didn't see this email and so assumed that I would be able retrieve my files. So, I lost about a decade's-worth of my personal files and then when I got understandably very upset, they dumped me as a customer. I also had my Bitcoin wallet backed up there and their servers got hacked and lost all my Bitcoins. Are there any lawyers out there?
Tried their starter plan for a day but I had canceled the plan
While their plan is very attractive to join, I had tried for a day and had huge trouble to set up for my react app and node js app (Yet they did mention this in their documentation but I would like to suggest they should make it more easily to setup). There is a 24/7 support but I found that the support person does not have any technical knowledge, plus already take at leat 10 minutes for just looking up your profile before starting the chat. They seems not really helpful. But I do think they have value for website which uses other technologies.
In conclusion, I believe they should improve their support quality.
After three years of happy and reliable hosting on Dreampress, changes in Dreamhost's web servers, hosting service, and technical support forced our online business to go elsewhere.
It began with unexpected servers crashes which quickly became daily and unresolvable. In about a week we dropped from years of stability to every-day troubleshooting to keep our site online.
And with each crash, we learn our server was running out of memory but tech support seemed less specific about the causes or instability. Instead, they chose to up-sell us on a new “Openstack” server deployment, promising better caching and performance -- at the same price.
We were thrilled with how fast we were operational on the new 'bionic' server but not happy to discover this upgraded server would actually cost us 35% more annually, that the memory configurations were no different, and ultimately the server crashes would continue.
For the next 10 weeks, we meticulously followed Dreamhost's advice to optimize our site build, to employ different caching strategies, to minify, to defer code, to better optimize images, and reduce page loading sizes.
We did everything required to get us to an A-rating with GTmetrix but the server crashes continued while Dreamhost offered us no effective assistance with resolving what became a maintenance nightmare.
The final straw was learning that DH tech support was aware of a bug in the new servers that prevented some MySQL DBs from restarting after a server crashes. When we migrated our site off of Dreamhost servers, they still hadn't isolated the problems or taken any ownership of them.
I registered account with dreamhost purchased their plan, my account was pending for 10 hours, all i could get from them is "i'm a fraudster" they rejected my account and refunded my money back, i used my real debit card and my name, i don't know but sounds like a racist host to me..
Do not engage in business with these guys. Our website was down multiple times for weeks at a time without any notification from them. We've lost over 6 figures of revenue solely from the website being down without our knowledge. They have the absolute worst support and will charge you $10 for every support contact. In process of suing at the moment.
I used them for 3 hours, then I have moved to other host, the issues began when I tried to access my site, It was just so slow I couldn't bare with it.
Will the cost of the hosting plan increase at renewal?
Every DreamHost plans price increases when you renew it.
Does DreamHost offer Windows VPS hosting?
No, DreamHost doesn’t have Windows VPS hosting options. Their VPS plans use Linux.
Does DreamHost offer an uptime guarantee?
DreamHost guarantees 100% uptime with every DreamHost plan. And if you experience any downtime, you receive compensation equal to the cost of one day’s hosting, up to a maximum of 10% of your total hosting cost.
How can I purchase a domain name at DreamHost?
Buying a domain name with DreamHost is easy. You can use their domain search tool to buy your desired domain name.
Can I contact customer support even if I’m not a current customer?
Yes, you can. You can visit DreamHost’s support page and select Sales. Or, you can contact them through their ticketing system.
What are some good Dreamhost alternatives?
Some good Dreamhost alternatives are A2 Hosting, Namecheap, BlueHost, SiteGround, and Hostgator.
Is Dreamhost fast?
Dreamhost has decent speeds but is actually not the fastest host on the market. Other hosts like A2 Hosting, SiteGround, Hostinger boast faster server response times.
Is Dreamhost the same as BlueHost?
No. Dreamhost and BlueHost are two different hosts. Both offer similar services – shared, VPS, dedicated and WordPress hosting but overall, Dreamhost offers more features out-of-the-box than BlueHost.
HostAdvice.com provides professional web hosting reviews fully independent of any other entity. Our reviews are unbiased, honest, and apply the same evaluation standards to all those reviewed.While monetary compensation is received from a few of the companies listed on this site, compensation of services and products have no influence on the direction or conclusions of our reviews. Nor does the compensation influence our rankings for certain host companies.This compensation covers account purchasing costs, testing costs and royalties paid to reviewers.
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