DreamHost Review

DreamHost supports over 1.5 million sites and employs open-source technology, which was critical to the company's four founders.

One of the things that distinguishes DreamHost from other hosting providers is that it provides the best month-to-month hosting pricing plans. Hosting with no commitment is available for a fraction of the cost of others. We sometimes talk half as much.

It's difficult to argue that DreamHost offers the most affordable hosting on the market today.

Compare DreamHost to The Best Web Hosting

We conducted extensive research to identify the best web hosting service available on the market today. Our findings from that research have been compiled in one place for you to enjoy: our guide to the Best Web Hosting Services. The guide describes all of the top-rated web hosting services, allowing you to compare and contrast them to determine which one is best for you. All of our top picks can be found here.

DreamHost occupies the third position on our list. Hostinger takes the top spot because it offers the most affordable web hosting service for long-term use. It is the one we suggest for the average user. A2 Hosting takes the number two spot, thanks to its fast performance. It offers the fastest web hosting speeds available on the market. It also has great one-click installations, which is a lifesaver for beginners.

DreamHost ranked third on our list for several reasons, which we will discuss below.

DreamHost: The Good and The Bad

 

DreamHost is one of our top picks for web hosting services for a variety of reasons. However, there are some aspects of this option that we dislike. Here are the pros and cons of DreamHost to help you decide whether this is the right service for you.

The Good

Affordable: Perhaps our favorite aspect of DreamHost is that it is the most affordable web hosting service when selecting a monthly plan. With the monthly billing option, you can cancel at any time with no additional fees. And, unlike the annual plans, the monthly plan includes all of the same features. The monthly billing option is ideal for those who cannot afford an annual plan or who are unsure how long they will require a functioning website.

In short, the monthly option's affordability provides flexibility that many other web hosting services do not, and it may be ideal for you.

Uptime: Uptime is extremely important in the web hosting experience. You don't want your site to go down, but if it does, you want it to recover quickly. It's bad if people can't find your website because it's down. Many tests have been performed to assess DreamHost's stability, and the results show that DreamHost is a stable and reliable service that rarely went down during the test periods. It may have gone down once or twice in thousands of different tests.

DreamHost is so certain of its uptime that it offers a 100% uptime guarantee. DreamHost is the only shared hosting service that provides such a strong guarantee. And if your site ever goes down, DreamHost will refund you for the amount of time your site was down. That's a guarantee we can stand behind.

Money-Back Guarantee: Speaking of guarantees, DreamHost has another excellent one to offer its customers. This service includes a 97-day money-back guarantee, which almost no other web hosting service can boast about. Your 97-day trial is completely risk-free, and if you aren't satisfied with the service, you will receive a full refund. And, as previously stated, if you are dissatisfied with the uptime, you can be compensated for it as well.

Please keep in mind that this money-back guarantee only applies to shared hosting plans and customers who paid with a credit card or Google Checkout.

Security: Though DreamHost does not provide anti-malware services on its email, it does a lot of things right in terms of security. One of them is that the control panel makes it simple to access and edit the.htaccess file, which is where you control who has access to the site and set passwords. This is something that you should have easy access to.

Furthermore, DreamHost allows you to block spiders for specific parts of your website that you do not want search engines to index.

What we really like about DreamHost is that it provides free SSL certificates, which adds an extra (and, in our opinion, necessary) layer of security for those selling products online or collecting any type of personal information from clients or customers.

There's more if that's not enough. DreamHost provides SSH and SFTP access, as well as HTTP/2, PHP 7, and its own firewall.

Domain Names: When you buy an annual (or longer) plan, you get a free domain name registration. This makes it simple to complete everything in one location. However, keep in mind that the free domain is only available for the first year. A.com domain will cost $15.95 per year after that.

You can select from the most popular domain names available, including.com,.net,.blog,.shop,.org,.info, and others.

Easy to Use: Many people enjoy using DreamHost's dashboard. It is modern and clean, and the design was created with the user in mind.

Everything you need for your hosting can be found here. DreamHost, unlike many other managed WordPress hosts, does not use the cPanel software. Instead, they designed a custom control panel for everything related to your account.

Unlimited Bandwidth: All DreamHost accounts come with unlimited bandwidth and storage. You can upgrade to a higher plan if you want unlimited storage. The shared starter plan has a storage limit of 50 GB, while the unlimited plan has, well, unlimited storage. However, keep in mind that there is a fair usage policy in place that prevents you from creating file-sharing websites.

The Bad

Few Server Locations: DreamHost's data centers are only located in Virginia and Oregon. This pales in comparison to competitors like SiteGround and A2 Hosting. DreamHost does not have servers outside of the United States, making it inaccessible to users in other parts of the world.

Email Account Not Part of Starter Plan: Email accounts must be purchased separately for the Shared Starter plan. While they are reasonably priced (as low as $1.67/month), it is unfortunate that you must pay a separate fee for something that is already included in other hosting service plans, such as those offered by Bluehost.

Support: DreamHost's email and ticket support are excellent, but their phone support is not. In fact, DreamHost does not provide phone support. Unless you pay the company to call you, they will gladly assist you.

If you need free assistance with your web hosting, you can use the live chat, an active forum, or their support via Twitter.

More Complex Installs: Whereas many other web hosting services make things simple and allow you to set up everything with a single click, DreamHost does not. Only a few CMSs are supported by the service's automated installation (including WordPress). Any other CMS on the list will require a more complicated installation.

DreamHost Pricing and Options

DreamHost Pricing

To determine whether DreamHost is right for you, you must first understand the various pricing and package options. DreamHost offers a number of different package options and products at various price points.

DreamHost Shared Hosting

The Shared hosting plan is the most affordable option for hosting your website with DreamHost.

If you sign a three-year contract, this package starts at $2.59/month to host one website. Otherwise, you'll pay $3.95 per month billed annually or $4.95 per month billed monthly.

There are two shared options: the Starter and the Unlimited. The Starter is ideal for those who are new to website development. This plan includes the following benefits:

• One website
• Free domain
• Unlimited traffic
• Pre-installed WordPress
• Free automated WordPress migrations
• WP Website Builder
• Fast SSD storage
• Free SSL certificate
• Email for as little as $1.67/month 

The Unlimited plan includes the following benefits:

• Unlimited websites
• Free domain
• Unlimited traffic
• Pre-installed WordPress
• Free automated WordPress migrations
• WP Website Builder
• Fast SSD storage
• Free SSL certificate
• Unlimited email at your domain 

These are both excellent places to begin, but if you begin to receive more than 200,000 visitors per month, you will need to upgrade your plan.

DreamHost VPS Hosting

A VPS (virtual private server) is best described as a shared hosting server that is then divided into smaller servers, giving you more flexibility to meet your specific needs. If you choose the VPS hosting plan, your website will be hosted separately from other DreamHost users.

This pricing plan includes everything listed above. The VPS plan is ideal for those who run a larger company or use ecommerce as part of their job.

Within DreamHost's general VPS plan, there are four levels: VPS Basic, VPS Business, VPS Professional, and VPS Enterprise. They are intended for various types of websites that will be used for various purposes.

The pricing for these VPS hosting services listed above is shown when you pay for three years of service. VPS Basic costs $13.75 per month for annual billing, and VPS Enterprise costs $110 per month. VPS Basic starts at $15 per month for monthly billing, and VPS Enterprise starts at $120 per month.

DreamHost Dedicated Hosting

If your company is large or your website receives a lot of traffic, you should think about getting a dedicated server. This means you have your own server that will not be clogged by other users. This server can be fully managed by DreamHost, but it is the most expensive type of hosting.

DreamHost offers two options in the dedicated category.

The Standard plan comes with 4GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. This plan costs $149 per month when billed annually and $169 per month when billed monthly.

The Enhanced plan comes with 16 GB of RAM and 2 TB of storage space. This plan costs $279 per month billed annually or $299 per month billed monthly.

Both the Standard and Enterprise plans have different tiers that offer varying amounts of RAM and storage.

DreamHost Cloud Hosting

DreamHost also provides cloud hosting, known as DreamCloud. Rather than a single server, this hosting method distributes your resources across multiple servers.

Within its cloud hosting, DreamHost provides three different plan options. They begin at $4.50 per month and include 512 MB of RAM, 80 GB of storage, and unlimited monthly data transfers. They also go up to $48/month for four CPU cores, eight gigabytes of RAM, eight gigabytes of storage, and unlimited monthly data transfers.

DreamHost Domain Names

DreamHost simplifies things even further by allowing you to purchase your domain through its website. Simply search for something you want on the website, and if it's available, you can have it for $6.99 per year. This includes free private registration as well.

When you purchase your domain from DreamHost, you will receive:

• Free private registration
• Free subdomains
• Easy domain transfers
• Simple domain management
• And more 

DreamHost Website Builder

If the thought of creating your own website makes you nervous, you should consider using DreamHost's Website Builder.

This product makes creating a website far less intimidating and far simpler. The WP Website builder includes themes to choose from as well as drag-and-drop features that make building a website as simple as possible.

Conclusion:

Overall, DreamHost is an excellent choice for web hosting. There are numerous plans to choose from, each with its own set of features. The fact that it is so reasonably priced for those interested in month-to-month plans is a huge plus in our book. It is ideal for anyone looking to host a website, whether you are a small or large business. It is one of our top picks because of the tools, website-building software, security, money-back guarantee, domains, and other features.