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DreamHost Web Hosting Review

4/5
Prices starting from:

$2.59 / mo.

Reg. Price $5.50 – Get 47% Off!
  • Free SSL Certificate
  • Modern control panel
  • 97-day money back guarantee
  • 24/7 Expert Support

About DreamHost

First and foremost, Kudos to the founders of DreamHost for choosing a catchy name for the Web Host. When I was searching for a host for my site back in the day, I remember DreamHost. The name stuck with me. I kept on thinking of how the host could be my dream host. Could it be? I didn’t ask that question for long. I joined chose the host as my host and hoped it would be my dream host.

I have grown with DreamHost, experienced its ups and downs. I would say the Webhost is better than it was, and we shall all about it.

DreamHost History and services

In 1996, four undergraduate students from Harvey Mudd College founded DreamHost but were later registered by a person named Michael Rodriguez in 1997. The same year 1997 is when it started hosting sites for customers. The Web Host has humble beginnings and its customers’ list was very small. Today, more than 1.5 people call it home for their sites. How about you? Do you want to make DreamHost your desired Host? Below are services to expect from DreamHost.

  • Site migrations
  • Dream Compute
  • Dedicated servers
  • Website builders
  • Webmail
  • WordPress Hosting
  • Domain names
  • WordPress Hosting
  • Virtual Private Servers
  • Free auto WordPress
  • Shared Hosting
  1. Free app hosting– The service enables customers to use resources such as Media Wiki for free whereby they can manage, or upgrade their applications to a fully manageable hosting service.
  2. Web design– If you want a site with a well-made design use DreamHost’s design maker.
  3. A web marketing for all your marketing needs like in social media and in SEO, this Web Host got you covered.
  4. Has DreamPress– A highly managed feature by WordPress servers that uses Solid State Drives.
  5. Dream Compute– A cloud Hosting service that provides compute resources to Entrepreneurs and Web developers. Ceph & OpenStack power the DreamCompute, and its work is security, resiliency, and scalability. Also, helps in system automation.
  6. Dream object is a storage service for the cloud and helps store different kinds of data such as videos, music, and any other content. The service stores data in multiple servers thus can be accessed from any location. It is a safe storage mode because if one server is down the same data is stored in other servers thus accessed.
  7. Site management is another DreamHosts service to all its customers. Unlike other Hosts where customers have to keep monitoring their site, in DreamHost, you just upload your work and it does everything else for you. For example, marketing your site.

DreamHost General Info & Hosting Overview

DreamHost is identifiable from other Hosts through the following features.

  1. Akanda is an OpenStack visualization project for networks in Cloud.
  2. Free Domain registrations and names
  3. WordPress Hosting
  4. SSD storage for WordPress Hosting service
  5. Unmetered bandwidth
  6. Shared Hosting
  7. Inktank is a support company and professional service provider for Ceph’s storage system.
  8. Free SSL certificates
  9. RAM storage available
Specification Value
AVERAGE UPTIME :
99.95%
SPEED:
854 ms
SUPPORT:
24/7 Live Chat
BANDWIDTH:
Unlimited Bandwidth
STORAGE:
Unlimited Storage Space
SITE TRANSFER:
Free Site Migration
MONEY BACK POLICY:
97 Day Money Back Guarantee
  1. Remixer which is DreamHosts web builder. The site also gives access to other site builders like Weebly, Wix, and Square Space, thus you have options to build your Website.
  2. Free WordPress transfers– Migration in WordPress DreamHost is free, though in other packages you have to pay a downtime fee of 99 USD.
  3. Automated activation– Sometime back in DreamHost, signing up was such a huge process where you could expect to stay for days without gaining access. Today, you only need to go through a few verification steps and your activation is approved.
  4. Options are affordable
  5. 97 days money back policy– It is a longer policy because Hosts like GreenGeeks offer 30 days, FastComet 45, and TMDHosting 60 days. 97 days are full three months which is enough time to examine and re-examine a site.
  6. The host is ‘green’– Include this host among the environmentally friendly hosts such as GreenGeeks. Cooling and clean wind programs are in its data centers. Other programs in support of their environment conservation goals are the use of renewable power supply e.g. solar panels, wind farms, and hydroelectric plants. Opportunities to work from home, recycle bins in offices, and plumbing fixtures that are low-carbon-flow.
  7. Monthly payments-Imagine that in those 97 trial days, you can pay your amount month to month, and ask for a refund if not fully satisfied.
  8. Offers unlimited bandwidth in all its plans.
  9. DreamHost WordPress uses Solid State Drives that are high speed than other storage devices.
  10. Ownership and operations of DreamHost are still done privately 25 years later after its foundation. This tells you a lot because most Web Hosts collapse and are sold to co-operations within their 10 years of foundation.

DreamHost

DreamHost

Free domain names that come with extra features like;

  • Domain forwarding redirects your visitors to another domain name that contains more details to your latter page.
  • DNS management that allows computer names instead of IP addresses like in other Hosts.
  • Auto-renewals for your name so that no one else will ever use or benefit from it other than you.
  • Domain locking (optional) to prevent unauthorized persons from tampering and making changes.
  • Numerous custom Nameservers branded your domain name to enable you to answer DNS requests,

DreamHost cons

  1. No site backups, dedicated IP, and marketing offer in any of their Shared plans.
  2. Live chat is limited– To be honest I haven’t encountered any other Web Host with such limited live chat agents’ support. You can easily notice this from their web pages where you do not see a live chatbox on either right or left-hand corners.
  3. Load time of 1320ms is slow in comparison to others hosts like the TMD that has a load time of 648ms.
  4. Their month-to-month payment is convenient but is expensive comparing to hosts like BlueHost that allow annual payments.
  5. You must contact their support team if you need modules like Apache activated on your site. Apache in other Web Hosts comes with the plans and the customers can access it through Cpanel.
  6. No window hosting such as that found in other hosts.

Pros & Cons of Using DreamHost Hosting

Pro

  • Officially recommended by WordPress
  • Unlimited disk space & data transfer
  • SSD Storage / Unlimited Traffic
  • 24/7 Expert Support
  • 97-day money back guarantee

Cons

  • Restrictions on Cheaper Plans
  • No phone support

DreamHost Prices, Hosting Plans:

DreamHost has two main packages namely;

  • Shared DreamHosting
  • WordPress DreamHosting

Plans and prices

Shared

Shared starter

$ 2.95

Shared unlimited

$ 7.95

 

The Shared plan has unlimited traffic, SSL certificates, a control panel, 24/7 support, email accounts, uptime, and 97-day money-back guarantees. The unlimited Shared has extra features including;

  • PHP 7.1
  • IPv6 support
  • Unlimited MySQL database
  • Access to Crontab
  • SSI which are Server Side Includes
  • Full Unix shell
  • Perl support, python, and rails
  • Access to raw log files
  • Access to Full CGI
  • Canned CGI scripts (canned)

Plans and prices

WordPress

Shared Starter

$ 2.59

DreamPress

$ 16.95

 

All WordPress plans have SSD storage, unlimited traffic, domain privacy, SSH access, WP-CLI, Control panel, Firewall, WordPress updates, and WordPress plug-ins.

The DreamPress has mores features like object and varnish caching, Brotli compression, HTTP2, and instant upgrades.

Other DreamHost plans include;

  • VPS Hosting: $10-$120 monthly
  • Dedicated Hosting: $149-$399 monthly

DreamHost Speed Test

Before we test the speed of our Host, let us the measures that it has taken to assure that operations are lighting running.

  • PHP 7 is the latest PHP version with a faster performance recording.
  • SSDs are faster storage gadgets than HDDs.
  • CDN servicing is for acceleration.
  • Opcache in PHP (default enabled)
  • G-zip compression (default enabled) that compresses files making them smaller, thus loaded faster.

Testing these features, I did the following;

  • Loaded 210 KB paged pages
  • Number of requests 15
  • The total load time was 1.1 seconds.

I downloaded a WordPress plugin, and then loaded the same page size 11 times, and the results?

  • Load time of 1 second.

Its uptime is 99.90 which is by far better than that of other hosts like TMDs which 99.46 is.

DreamHost Add-ons

These add-ons are either supported or unsupported by DreamHost but can be downloaded and used on the site.

  • Remote desktops.
  • Minecraft
  • PostgreSQL
  • .NET
  • Jira
  • Phoenix/Elixer/Erlang

DreamHost Support

Like other Hosts, DreamHost has a support contact some accessible only by their customers, but others also by non-customers.

Email support for example is only accessible by their customers as one gets an email account linked to the host upon buying a plan.

Phone number– You may call DreamHosts’ phone number which is found on their contact support page. It is a good support system, but the customer incurs extra phone charges like credit which is not covered in the plans.

Use their knowledge base– It includes other users, their FAQs, DreamHost Academy, and discussion forums. I used it last year when their direct support failed and I was amazed. The answers to what you want are out there just mingle, talk to fellow users.

Ticket support that operates similarly to Emailing. The difference is, you get a ticket when you send your question, and receive help from those who bought tickets before you do.

Conclusion

Would I recommend DreamHost? Yes, you will like most things about DreamHost. I agree it has some cons, but which Web Host doesn’t? None. The 97-day money-back policy is a top seller which should attract you too. Also, the fact that it is environmentally friendly is a huge plus for me. I know customers who joined my reseller program in the host because of that, environmentally conscious. A 4.5 rating out of 5 in most sites is another plus as it means that most people love DreamHost.

You can currently get 47% off all plans. Dreamhost offers a 100% money-back guarantee.
DreamHost offers a very reliable platform for hosting your website. Their starting prices may be slightly higher than the competition, but being upfront about the prices, leave no room for confusion down the line.  My advice? Try it, it could be your dream Host just as it has for many.

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