DreamHost has become famous for its generous and industry leading 97-day money-back guarantee, and they promise that your website is fast, secure & always up.
As one of the longest reigning web hosting providers in the market today, DreamHost knows about features, affordability, and customer support. This DreamHost review will inform you if this web host is a good choice for you.
However, we want to guide you through everything they have to offer, so if they come up on your list of “maybes,” you can better determine whether DreamHost is the web host you want to trust your site’s data to.
This is what you'll learn from this DreamHost review
- The list of Pros
Here I take a closer look at the pros of using DreamHost. Because there are loads of good things about this web host.
- The list of Cons
But there are a few downsides to DreamHost as well. Here I take a closer look at what the cons are.
- DreamHost Plans & Prices
Here in this section I will cover their plans and prices in more detail.
- Do I Recommend DreamHost.com?
Here I tell you if I recommend them or if I think you are better off with an alternative to DreamHost.
So, let’s get into this DreamHost review…
DreamHost Pros
DreamHost is an independently owned and operated hosting company that has withheld the test of time, despite Endurance International seemingly taking over some of the biggest names in hosting history (e.g. iPage, Hostgator, and Bluehost).
In order for DreamHost to have done this, and remain successful, it has had to work hard to satisfy customers looking for reliable hosting that comes with everything needed to run a profitable website.
So, let’s take a look and see just what they have to offer that’s so great.
1. Speed
Fast servers is a very important factor when choosing a web host. Because research has shown that most site visitors will leave your website (and never come back) if it fails to load within 2 seconds or less.
The faster your website loads the better!
It really depends on the services you've got with us, but we've spent a lot of time building our managed WordPress offering, DreamPress, to deliver one of the most responsive WordPress experiences on the web!
DreamPress is cached at the server level with PHP OPcache and Memcached, runs on top of blazing-fast PHP7, and lives distributed across an Nginx web server and a WordPress-optimized MySQL database server. We're very proud of DreamPress and we've worked hard to make it one of the web's most powerful WordPress hosting options.
Brett Dunst – DreamHost VP of Corporate Communications
DreamHost offers some of the latest speed technology to ensure that your site loads fast:
- Solid State Drives. Your site’s files and databases are stored on SSD, which are a lot faster than HDD (Hard Disk Drives).
- Gzip Compression. Is enabled by default on all hosting plans
- OPcache Caching. OPcache is a caching engine built into PHP, and is also enabled by default.
- Content Delivery Network. Cloudflare is a CDN service that provides website protection and acceleration. DreamHost is an “Optimized Hosting Partner” of Cloudflare.
- PHP7. This is the latest version of PHP and ensures faster performance and less resources.
Speed test – how fast is DreamHost?
I decided to test the load time. I created a test website hosted (on the Shared Starter plan), and then I installed WordPress (using the Argent theme and dummy lorem ipsum content).
Out of the box the test site loaded pretty fast, 1.1 seconds, 210 kb page size and 15 requests.
Not bad at all .. but it gets better.
DreamHost already comes with built-in caching and gzip compression that are enabled by default, so there are no settings to optimize here.
But to speed things up even more, I went ahead and installed a free WordPress plugin called Autoptimize and I simply enabled the default settings.
That improved the performance even more, as it shaved off 0.1 seconds, and it reduced the total page size to just 199 kb and reduced the number of requests down to 11.
WordPress sites hosted on DreamHost will load pretty fast, and here I’ve shown you a simple technique you can use to speed things up even more.
2. DIY Remixer Website Builder
The team at DreamHost knows how hard it can be to build a website from scratch, especially when you don’t know any code.
That’s why they offer the Remixer website builder to all customers for making stand out websites that are destined to drive traffic and convert visitors into customers.
Here are some of the features that come with your built-in website builder:
- Unlimited website creation under one hosting plan
- No page limits
- Mobile-friendly themes
- Custom colors and fonts
- Domain name assignment to Remixer website (free of charge)
- Access to free and professional looking stock photography
- Built-in SEO optimization
- Individual media library so you can publish photos, video, and audio on your site
Building a website from the ground up is super simple when you use their exclusive website builder.
3. Domain Names and More
Not only does DreamHost offer free domain names with their hosting plans (save for the starter shared hosting plan), they include a bunch of additional features too, making the deal a little sweeter.
To start, use their convenient domain name search bar to find the perfect URL for your growing website.
Next, enjoy the following:
- Auto-renewals. Set you own domain name auto-renewals so that each year you can make sure your domain name stays yours and no one capitalize on your hard work.
- DNS Management. Reference computers by names instead of IP addresses.
- Receive as many subdomains as you need, for free.
- Custom Nameservers. Create vanity nameservers branded with your domain to respond to DNS requests for your domain.
- Domain Forwarding. Automatically redirect your site visitors to another URL or domain name for easier content management.
- Optional Domain Locking. Lock your domain name for free for added security so no unauthorized changes can be made.
Registering your domain name with DreamHost is the simplest solution when you use them as your hosting provider too.
That said, if you have a domain name with another company, you can easily transfer it over to DreamHost when you’re ready.
4. Dedication to the Environment
DreamHost understands that running a hosting company takes its toll on the environment. For example, electricity to keep servers running, paper to run offices, and even the gas it takes to get employees to and from work each day affect the environment we all share.
There is also an understanding that over the years, and long into the future, DreamHost has grown and will continue to grow into a larger business that uses more of the earth’s precious resources.
In response, DreamHost does the following to reduce their own carbon footprint:
- Their offices run with energy efficient appliances and lighting and uses motion-controlled, low-flow plumbing fixtures
- Datacenters include high-efficiency cooling infrastructure, use of municipal and reclaimed water, power-efficient processors, and power from renewable resources such as wind farms, solar panels, and hydroelectric plants
- Employees receive complimentary recycling bins in their offices, financial incentives to use public transportation, work-from-home opportunities, and access to e-filing and videoconferencing
If doing your part to save the environment is important, you can rest assured DreamHost is on your side and is doing its best to provide you environmentally responsible hosting services.
5. 100% Uptime
It’s a rarity to find a hosting company that will provide a true 100% uptime guarantee. And yet, DreamHost does it somehow.
Using multiple data center locations to handle the load and any threats of downtime, redundant cooling, emergency generators, and constant server monitoring, DreamHost keeps your website up and running all of the time.
If at any time your site does experience downtime (which according to DreamHost it won’t), but just in case it does, you’ll also be compensated.
And, if you want to check out the current status of any critical issues, downtime, and system updates, check out the DreamHost Status Website anytime you want.
And to top it off, if you want to check out the history of any server issues that have happened with DreamHost, you can do that too:
This transparency is a great feature that customers appreciate. The world is not perfect, and neither are any web hosting providers on the market.
Hiding the fact that things happen doesn’t tend to sit well with paying customers, so DreamHost makes an effort to show you when things happen and how they are handled, so you can be sure you’re getting your money’s worth and your website is protected.
6. Impressive Money Back Guarantee
Again, DreamHost really outdoes itself when it comes to guaranteeing it has the hosting services you need to run a successful website.
All shared hosting plans come with a 97-Day Money-Back Guarantee and all DreamPress plans come with 30-Day Money-Back Guarantees.
This is extraordinary seeing as even InMotion’s 90-Day Money-Back Guarantee can’t even compete. And most other hosting providers only give you 30 or 45 days to cancel if not satisfied.
DreamHost wants you to make sure they are (or aren’t) the ones for you. And by having such a generous refund policy, all customers of DreamHost begin to build trust with them from the start, which can go along way for business.
After all, many eCommerce shops claim that when they lengthen the refund time period, they actually see a decline in refunds and an increase in sales.
7. Great Customer Support
There will likely be times when you need to contact someone in support. That’s why knowing that there will be a knowledgeable team member to help you out at any time is crucial.
DreamHost has real-life human beings on standby to help you solve your every problem. They are experienced with web hosting and WordPress (if you choose the managed WordPress hosting plan) and can help you solve any issues you run into.
In addition, you can:
- Get in touch with customer support via live chat 24/7/365
- Access support staff, tech support, or the service team by email to get your questions answered
- Start a thread in the community forum to see what other DreamHost customers think
- Troubleshoot yourself using the extensive Knowledge Base that has articles related to account management/billing, SSL certificates, product support, and more
DreamHost Cons
In short, DreamHost is a simple hosting provider that offers its customers features needed to run a successful website.
However, there are some things that aren’t that great that you should be aware of before deciding DreamHost is for you.
1. No cPanel
Traditionally, hosting providers give their customers access to things like account management and billing, email accounts, FTP information, and more in cPanel or Plesk, both of which are intuitive control panels with easy to use dashboards.
DreamHost doesn’t do that, which can make the learning curve a bit tough for those new to hosting or those familiar with cPanel.
The problem with DreamHost’s proprietary control panel is that it can be tough to find the things you’re looking for, the dashboard can seem limiting, and customer support requests increase because people find themselves having a lot of trouble completing even the simplest of tasks.
2. No Phone Support
Sure, you can access DreamHost support via email or live chat. But there is no phone number you can reach out to when you want to talk to a real live person.
Though you can request a call back from technical support, this is going to cost you extra as this support service does not come included with your hosting plan.
Instead, you can add three callbacks to your account for a monthly fee, or invest in a one-time callback for a set fee as well.
This does not bode well for many customers, seeing as most reliable hosting providers have email, support ticket systems, live chat, and phone service available for all customers free of charge.
Adding to that, live chat support is not available 24/7, like the email support is. Instead, you can only access them every day from 5:30AM – 9:30PM Pacific Time.
While this isn’t normally a problem, we can all think of a time when we needed immediate support in the middle of the night. It also seems that the only way to access live chat support is through your control panel, which doesn’t help if you have pre-sale questions you want to be answered right away. Instead, you have to use the online contact form.
DreamHost Hosting Plans
DreamHost has many hosting plans available including shared hosting, dedicated servers, virtual private servers (VPS), and WordPress hosting,
However, we’re just going to take a look at the shared and WordPress hosting plans.
DreamHost’s shared hosting is very simple.
There are only two plans to choose from:
- Shared Starter. This is great for those just starting out. It includes one website, a .com domain name for a low price, unlimited traffic, fast SSD storage, SSL certificate, and the option to upgrade to add an email account. This plan starts at $2.95/month.
- Shared Unlimited. This plan is great for those with multiple websites. Enjoy unlimited websites, a free domain name, unlimited traffic and SSD storage, multiple SSL certificates, and email hosting. This plan starts at $7.95/month.
With shared hosting, you have access to the proprietary control panel, 100% uptime guarantee, 24/7 support, and the impressive 97-Day Money-Back Guarantee.
Other features in the DreamHost Shared Unlimited plan include:
- Unlimited MySQL databases
- Server Side Includes (SSI)
- IPv6 support
- Full Unix shell
- PHP 7.1 support
- Rails, Python, and Perl support
- Access to raw log files
- Crontab access
- Full CGI access
- Canned CGI scripts
It’s important to note that DreamHost does not offer Windows operating systems including ASP.NET or Windows Server. Instead, they only offer Linux support.
WordPress Hosting
As a company that works hard to empower content creators by helping them achieve success online, we would be crazy to not be crazy about WordPress – it powers over a third of the web!
WordPress brings the creativity of people and the power of computers together in a way that few web platforms have been able to accomplish. The WordPress community is incredible and never ceases to amaze us!
It’s full of thousands of helpful people, all focused as much on improving the core platform as it is ensuring that anyone who wants their voice heard online gets that chance.
In fact, our Vision and Mission statements align very closely with an open web and democratized publishing:
“People have the freedom to choose how their digital content is shared” is our Vision statement. “Foster success by providing the open web platform of choice” is our Mission statement.
Brett Dunst – DreamHost VP of Corporate Communications
DreamHost’s WordPress hosting is also very simple.
There are only two plans to choose from:
- Shared Starter. This is good for small WordPress websites, those just starting out, and anyone on a strict budget. It comes with a shared hosting server, supports one website, and comes with unlimited traffic, fast SSD storage, a 1-click SSL certificate, 24/7 support, and the chance to upgrade to add an email account. This plan starts at $2.59/month.
- DreamPress. This is powerful WordPress hosting for large websites and businesses that want seamless performance on their highly trafficked sites. It comes optimized for WordPress and with built-in tools. It comes with a fast cloud server, includes one website, 10K monthly site visitors, 30GB SSD storage, a 1-click SSL certificate, email hosting, 24/7 support, and a free Jetpack pre-installation. This plan starts at $16.95/month.
With DreamHost WordPress hosting, you get lighting fast speed, built-in security features, and WordPress Specialists trained to help you with your questions and concerns.
In addition, all WordPress hosting plans come with:
- Automatic WordPress updates (WordPress core and security updates)
- A WordPress install and popular plugins and themes to get you started
- Domain privacy
- Unlimited email addresses
- Custom DreamHost control panel
- Built-in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
- Complete domain management
- SFTP and SSH access
- WP-CLI
If you opt for the DreamPress hosting plan, you’ll also receive server-level caching, object caching, instant site launches, varnish caching, Brotli compression, instant upgrades, default HTTP status, and NGINX with HTTP2 enabled.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions:
- What is DreamHost? DreamHost is a Los Angeles-based web hosting company. It was founded in 1996 by Dallas Bethune, Josh Jones, Michael Rodriguez and Sage Weil. Their official website is www.dreamhost.com. Read more on their Wikipedia page.
- What type of hosting plans are available with DreamHost? Shared, VPS, dedicated, and managed WordPress hosting.
- What kind of control panel is used? DreamHost’s custom built control panel.
- Will I receive an SSL certificate? Yes, all domains hosted by DreamHost receive a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate and enjoys a 1-click install performed in the control panel.
- Can I host an email account? Unless you invest in the Shared Started hosting plan, you’ll receive email hosting with unlimited email addresses.
- Does DreamHost offer a website builder? Yes, all hosting plans come with Remixer, which is DreamHost’s click-to-edit website builder. In addition, you get pre-designed themes to choose from, built-in stock images, and color schemes to choose from. You can also create as many webpages as you want – all without needing to know any code.
- What kind of customer support can I expect with DreamHost? You can access live chat support 7 days a week during extended business hours, 24/7 email support, and pay for premium phone call-back support. There is also a community forum available and an extensive Knowledge Base with plenty of articles about several topics.
- What kind of guarantees are there? DreamHost offers a 100% uptime guarantee (complete with compensation in the case your site does go down), as well as a 97-Day Money-Back Guarantee.
Do I Recommend DreamHost?
We truly believe in an open web that respects the ownership rights of all users. Content creators shouldn't be constrained by a Terms of Service that takes away some ownership of their own digital media.
They shouldn't look to tech companies to tell them what they can and can't publish online. DreamHost delivers true data portability and respect for our users and their content, and we do it with the power of open-source software.
Brett Dunst – DreamHost VP of Corporate Communications
In the end, there’s a good reason why DreamHost has been around for so long and has held on to its success. It offers easy to understand hosting plans, affordable pricing, and more than enough features to run a decent size website without any problems.
That said, not having the cPanel or Plesk control panel to manage account information can be a turnoff for those that love the intuitive nature of more traditional control panels. Not to mention, having to pay for phone support is not going to sit well with a lot of potential customers.
For bloggers, small businesses, and those with WordPress websites, DreamHost is an adequate hosting provider. Though it is important to make sure their simplicity offers enough by way of features for you and your growing site.
That said, if you do decide to go with DreamHost hosting, you can at least rest on the fact that you have 97 days to decide whether they’re the right choice for you or not.
So, check DreamHost out and see for yourself. Their remixer website builder, non-existent traffic limits, dedication to the environment, and 24/7 email support may be just what you need to launch a successful website.
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