DreamHost Review: Is DreamHost A Good Hosting Service?

dreamhost review

If you’ve been searching for the real facts about DreamHost, then look no further.

This review discusses all the things you need to know when it comes to hosting offerings by DreamHost.

We begin our review with the things that we like and dislike with DreamHost, before taking a closer look at the features of their hosting packages. ​We also briefly touch on their customer support.

Let’s get started.

Special Offer

For solid scalability options and eco-friendly hosting, try DreamHost.
97-day Money Back Guarantee.

DreamHost Review FAQ

Should you use DreamHost?

DreamHost offers a solid hosting solution for WordPress webmasters, or for users on the Drupal or Joomla framework. Their general shared hosting service is also good. 

As far as uptime, reliability and performance goes, DreamHost is up there with the best. But where we think they excel is in their higher level hosting package, DreamPress. This offer is ideally suited for the more experienced webmaster looking for performance gains and scalability.

One negative though, especially if you are a devout cPanel users, is that DreamHost don't use the more common cPanel interface. We think many users familiar with cPanel may find this off-putting.

That being said, they DreamHost offer a 97 day money-back guarantee (which is a lot longer than most other competitors), and means that users get a good chance to trial their hosting and Web Panel.

DreamHost are also known for their eco-friendly offering, so if the environmental impact of hosting is a concern for you, DreamHost is a good choice (although our preferred green host is GreenGeeks).

What are the Pros & Cons of DreamHost?

Pros

  • Unlimited MySQL databases - with DreamHost you get unlimited MYSQL databases.
  • Great uptime – DreamHost has great uptime which comes in at around 97.97%
  • 97-day money-back guarantee – This money back guarantee is great because it gives you more than the usual 30 days offered by most competitors. Over this period of time, you will be able to have a true reflection of their service and this also speaks to the confidence that DreamHost has when it comes to your expected experience.
  • DreamHost is green – In an industry that uses a lot of power to operate, DreamHost runs several initiatives in their attempt to remain green and carbon neutral.

Cons

  • No cPanel – DreamHost have created their own cPanel alternative called Web Panel. We have listed this as a con because if you have been using cPanel for a long time, then you may have some navigation troubles using Web Panel. The difficulties come in because different icons have been used and two different navigation menus sometimes makes it difficult to find what you’re looking for. One more difficulty with Web Panel is that it requires you to import all your previous cPanel files and databases manually.
  • Price – DreamHost is slightly more expensive than some of its competitors and this is because they only offer one tier of shared starter plans. However, if your aim is to grow your website, then you may switch soon.
  • Domain price after 1st year – Although you may receive a free domain, it is only for the first year, after which the cost for the domain is relatively expensive.

Special Offer

For solid scalability options and eco-friendly hosting, try DreamHost.
97-day Money Back Guarantee.

What hosting plans and features does DreamHost offer?

DreamHost offer hosting packages for shared hosting, VPS , cloud and dedicated hosting.

For the purposes of this review we focus on their WordPress hosting options.

DreamHost offers three options for WordPress sites namely: Shared starter, Shared unlimited and DreamPress packages.

The pricing for these packages begin at $2.59 per month for shared starter, $7.95 for shared unlimited and finally $16.95 for DreamPress per month.

Features

Shared Starter

Shared Unlimited

DreamPress

No. of websites

1

Unlimited

Unlimited

Domain included

No, upgrade to .com for $9.99

Included

Included

Unlimited SSD Storage

No

Yes

Yes

SSL Certificate

Yes

Yes

Yes

Email Hosting

No

Yes

Yes

Support

24/7

24/7

24/7

Varnish Caching

No

No

Yes

What is DreamHost's Customer Service like?

Customer support is an important part of your web hosting experience, if you have an issue and need to find a solution you want to know that this solution is just around the corner.

DreamHost offers a good customer support system but are not the most responsive host we tested. We found the average response time was around 1.5 hours, which is fine if your problem is not urgent, but in our opinion, it could be better. Some competitors, like WPX Hosting had a response time in the single digit minutes.

DreamHost provides a knowledge base for their customers to read up on general support topics and how to fix issues themselves. These self-help options are really great as it gives users the opportunity to understand how to quickly fix any future problems.

There is a 24/7 support team, but as mentioned earlier, response times are slightly slow, so it may be in your interest to read through the self-help articles because you may be able to solve the problem quicker that way.

Special Offer

For solid scalability options and eco-friendly hosting, try DreamHost.
97-day Money Back Guarantee.

Final Verdict

If you are looking for a host that will offer you great performance and easily scalable hosting options, then DreamHost is for you. Performance is what sets DreamHost apart from their competitors and this performance is reflected in their price.

The price, as it scales out, can be seen as a drawback as you may be asking yourself why would I spend more on essentially the same service that everyone else is offering and we’re here to tell you that, if growth is your main concern, then it will be money well spent.

From their uptime to their security; DreamHost will earn every cent you’re paying and still give you more value.

The final thing we would like to add is about their green initiatives. DreamHost runs several initiatives which source power from renewable energy sources and therefore make not only a conscious effort, but a monetary one to decrease their carbon emissions. With the state of global warming, we think this is great and would like to leave it as our final take away.

About the Author Devon Ramages

Devon is our resident online business and social media guru. With a background in digital marketing, Devon has worked in a consulting capacity helping small business scale their reach and engagement online. When not consulting or writing about online business, Devon can be found surfing in his hometown, Cape Town, South Africa.

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