DreamHost Review

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Founded in 1996, DreamHost is one of the oldest web hosting services to date. Hosting over 1.5 million websites with 400,000 customers and 750,000 WordPress installations—I think DreamHost is one of the best web hosting services for most website owners.

With extensive product offerings that aren’t just limited to hosting plans, DreamHost can help you integrate domain names, website builders, and email hosting into your website efficiently and affordably.

It’s web hosting with a purpose and will make sure your site is fast, secure, and up to date for your visitors.

DreamHost Compared to The Best Web Hosting Services

Compared to other web hosting services, DreamHost is a more well-rounded and inclusive option, with an extensive range of website hosting products for different needs.

DreamHost is my top pick for quick and responsive website changes because of its dedication to excel and adapt to new trends. Not only that, DreamHost also has a passion for privacy, security, and is employee-owned, so they have a strong focus on its users and their individual needs.

I reviewed dozens of different web hosting services and narrowed it down to the top eight options. I looked at each option to see who it’s best for, what options there are to choose from, and how to choose the right one.

See all of my top picks and get an in-depth analysis of each one to make the best buying decision for your website needs.

Who is DreamHost Best For?

With its low price and high quality, DreamHost is an excellent option for most website owners. This may seem broad, but hear me out.

DreamHost is the most inclusive web hosting service for both small and large businesses working on different sized projects. This is because it has a high enough performance speed, customer support, and reliable uptime for most website owners.

Whether you’re in the blogging or site developing niche, DreamHost will offer sturdy and dependable hosting support at an affordable price.

Because it supports SSDs and high-level technology, DreamHost makes it easy for users to customize their control panel with no issues.

From beginners to tech-savvy users, DreamHost knows that your website is your future, making it the best for most website owners who are looking for extra support and high-quality performance.

DreamHost: Pros and Cons

Even the best web hosting services have flaws, and it’s important to weigh up the pros and cons of a product before purchasing to make sure each element contributes to your preferences and the success of your site. Below is a list of the pros and cons for DreamHost.

Pros

Affordable pricing: DreamHost is one of the most affordable web hosting services on the market, which we will cover later on. To make it short and sweet, DreamHost offers a nice variety of pricing plans you can customize to pay for in either monthly or annual installments.

Monthly payments start at $4.95, whereas annual prices start at $3.95 per month, which means you save more by paying annually. This is a rarity for web hosting services, as many of its competitors seem to charge more for annual payment options.

Automated integrations: DreamHost offers automatic integration and one-click installation for a few CMS options, such as WordPress, MediaWiki, and Joomla.

This is a major advantage for most users because it gives them the option to choose a different website and transition with ease. It’s even easier for users who already use one of the supported CMS options because DreamHost will install it for you with one click.

The most popular CMS option DreamHost supports is WordPress, and you will have the easiest time integrating this specific option with your hosting provider. DreamHost also allows you to choose any WordPress theme or plugin for your website. Essentially, you will have full control of your website’s appearance, while DreamHost does all the nitty-gritty behind the scenes.

Extensive customer support: Another significant feature of DreamHost is its comprehensive customer support base. There are two main ways to contact them for free support via your control panel, including live chat and email support.

Live chat operates seven days a week from 5:30 am-9:30 pm Pacific Time, while the DreamHost support team strives to answer all emails within 24 hours. However, if you feel you need extra guidance for technical issues, DreamHost does offer a callback service for an additional fee.

Because callbacks aren’t included in your hosting package by default, you will have to add them. You can choose to add three callbacks per month for a nominal monthly fee or a one-time callback feature for a fee as well.

Not only does DreamHost offer those support services, but they also have dedicated pages for knowledge base questions, system status, tech support, and discussion forums.

High-quality performance and speed: DreamHost offers incredible performance and speed that will permanently transform your website’s quality.

For example, DreamHost specifically designs products to be compatible with WordPress for optimal performance. This ensures seamless and fluid integration between DreamHost and your WordPress website, making it run at peak speed.

Another great performance feature involves the use of SSDs. With DreamHost SSDs, your overall website, data, and caching are 200 percent faster than old HDDs. With lightning-fast speeds and a loading time of 2.35 seconds, your visitors can scroll your website without lag and won’t get caught up in unnecessary wait times.

DreamHost also guarantees 100% reliable uptime, so your site will always be online and functioning to its maximum potential. With emergency generators, constant monitoring, redundant cooling, and data center locations, your website will never operate as well as it does with DreamHost.

Cons

Additional fees for advanced features: If you’re looking for a more comprehensive web hosting service that offers advanced features and tools to transform your website, unfortunately, DreamHost lacks a little in this department.

In the beginning it’s possible to build your website for next to nothing—but there are some additional costs involved for those looking at extensive support. For example, DreamHost offers products outside of web hosting like website builders, G suite, design services, and marketing tools.

However, they all cost extra and can become quite pricey, as they aren’t included in your hosting package. If you do want additional support all from one platform for the added convenience, you’re looking at forking out an extra $2.95 per month for website building up to $1,499 for design services.

Even though a few of the features are quite affordable for monthly payments, if you want more professional services, it’s something you would want to re-evaluate and plan for in your budget.

The Shared Starter plan doesn’t include email hosting: Although email hosting costs an extra $1.67 per month per mailbox for the shared starter plan, which is still reasonably affordable—it’s also an additional cost for those who wish to purchase the starter plan as a complete beginner with little tech experience.

This is especially pertinent when it costs an extra $9 per month for the next plan with unlimited email hosting. This can be a disadvantage for website owners looking for a cheaper plan that aligns more with their budget.

DreamHost Pricing

A major benefit when choosing DreamHost as your web hosting provider is the price. It is one of the most affordable products on the market when you weigh it up against the high-quality services it provides to its users. DreamHost offers three main hosting plans you can pay annually for a discount, including:

Each of these three plans, Shared, DreamPress, and VPS, have additional options within the plan.

For example, Shared Starter and Shared Unlimited, DreamPress, DreamPress plus, and DreamPress Pro. And then the VPS plan is broken down into amount of storage, from 30 GB SSD storage on VPS Basic to 240 DB SSD storage on VPS Enterprise. There are two additional VPS plan options between those.

Let’s begin with the Shared plan. The Shared Starter option is brilliant for beginners who have one new website and aren’t sure where to start. It offers the basic tools your website will need for hosting, like one WordPress website, a free domain, and unlimited bandwidth.

For $3.95 per month paid annually, users also get a bang for their buck with the WP website builder and free automated WordPress integrations. These usually start between $2.59-$9.95 per month, so having both included in the plan for free is an enormous value to your business.

DreamHost also offers the Shared Unlimited plan, which includes everything in the Shared Starter plan, plus unlimited emailing and websites for $9.95 per month paid annually. This would be a good plan for users that have multiple websites who need different email accounts.

The next main DreamHost pricing plan is DreamPress. You save 15 percent by paying annually at $16.95 per month. This plan includes everything the Shared Unlimited plan has and includes on-demand backups, jetpack free pre-installation, and one-click staging.

This plan is more suited for users who already have a WordPress website specifically, as it’s created to co-exist with this builder seamlessly.

There are two other DreamPress options, including:

DreamPress Plus: $24.95 per month with double the SSD storage, jetpack professional, and unlimited CDN
DreamPress Pro: $71.95 per month with 120GB SSD storage, 1M+ monthly visitors, and one staging website

These pricing plans are more suited to high-demanding WordPress websites that require comprehensive tools.

I will get into VPS hosting and options in the next section.

DreamHost Offerings

DreamHost has a few product offerings for web hosting that cater to most users. Below is an in-depth look at the different products DreamHost offer for web hosting services:

WordPress Hosting

WordPress hosting is by far the most popular product that DreamHost offers to its users. DreamHost specifically optimized most of their tools and technology for WordPress compatibility, so it’s for a good reason that WordPress hosting is so popular.

WordPress hosting on DreamHost will completely transform your website with powerful features, add-ons, and 24/7 support. They do this by working closely with WordPress.org themselves, so you will always get the newest version and continuous updates to make sure your website is running and secure.

The easiest part about choosing WordPress hosting is the instant set up and installation process. If you select a plan that supports multiple websites, the one-click installer will do everything for you—offering seamless integration.

WordPress hosting starts at $2.59 per month for one website with a 36-month commitment.

By choosing WordPress hosting, your website will benefit from some key features, including:

Free privacy protection
Free domain with annual plans
Free email hosting
Advanced and easy-to-use control panel
Free SSL certificate
Automated backups

WordPress hosting is an excellent option for those who own a WordPress website for the most effortless transitions and seamless integration into web hosting.

VPS Hosting

Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting is another common hosting option that DreamHost manages and monitors very well. With performance and security updates, your website will be safest with the wide variety of tools and features of VPS at DreamHost.

A powerful feature DreamHost offers with VPS hosting is individual resources that only your website can use. This means dedicated resources will help your website create low latency and high performance.

With an intuitive control panel, VPS hosting has never been easier to manage. DreamHost also allows you to customize this control panel to your individual preferences. You also have the option to upgrade your RAM and storage in under 10 seconds, giving you that extra peace of mind for when your website inevitably grows.

The DreamHost VPS plans offer basic and advanced features for different goals, including:

Basic features:

20x faster SSDs that range from 30GB to 240GB
Scalable 1GB RAM
Reseller and sub-accounts for client and contractor website access
Unlimited MySQL databases

Advanced features:

Automatic software updates
Password protection
Access to raw file logs
Unique IPv4 and IPv6

These features will work well for users looking for a more comprehensive hosting service on a private server.

VPS hosting offers four different pricing plans, including:

VPS Basic: starting at $10 per month with 1GB RAM and 30 GB SSD storage
VPS Business: starting at $20 per month with 2GB RAM and 60 GB SSD storage
VPS Professional: starting at $40 per month with 4GB RAM and 120 GB SSD storage
VPS Enterprise: starting at $80 per month with 8GB RAM and 240 GB SSD storage

DreamHost makes sure there’s a pricing plan for every website owner looking at VPS hosting.

Cloud Hosting

Lastly, DreamHost offers a unique service called cloud hosting with OpenStack. Cloud hosting, also known as DreamCompute, is a product that provides simple cloud servers to advanced network configurations.

Cloud hosting is an excellent option for users who are looking at hosting a website using software of their choice, are running their own server, for gaming purposes, or are running web-scale applications.

Like the other two product offerings, DreamHost always makes sure speed and performance are a top priority for all servers. Cloud hosting SSH is ready in 30 seconds because of next-gen processors and accelerated SSD disks.

Cloud hosting offers a few helpful features, like:

Storage application integration
Backup WordPress sites
Run any application like Ruby, Python, and Redis
Migrate works into your private cloud

DreamCompute has three pricing plans with really flexible prices, including:

512MB RAM Server: $4.50 per month ($0.0075 per hour)
2GB RAM Server: $12 per month ($0.02 per hour)
8GB RAM Server: $48 per month ($0.08 per hour)

With the cloud hosting plans, DreamHost only charges users up to 600 hours in any given month. All plans come with 100GB of block storage and free bandwidth.

The Best Web Hosting Services

I’ve spent hours reviewing different web hosting services. You can check out my buying guide here.

Summary

Overall, DreamHost is an excellent web hosting service option for most website owners looking for high performance and quick adaptation at an affordable price.

With great pricing packages and product offerings like WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, and cloud hosting, there’s an option for everyone with different preferences.

The pros definitely outweigh the cons of DreamHost, and I think it’s worth looking into for website transformation and growth.

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