With a user base of 400k, Dreamhost is the most trusted web hosting service among businesses. Dreamhost is one of the oldest web hosting services that is home to about 1.5 million websites, blogs, and applications.
Although Dreamhost is highly recommended, if you are still confused about investing in it then this article will help you. In this article, we are doing a Dreamhost review that will help you in getting to know about the web hosting service better.
Head on!
DreamHost Overview
Before going forward to the features, we would like to brief about the technical details of the Dreamhost web hosting service.
SPEED: 648ms (average)
UPTIME: 99.94% (average)
SUPPORT: Ticket & Callback
APPS: WordPress, Blogger, Drupal, Shopify, Wix, and more
FEATURES: Unlimited bandwidth and storage, free SSL, free domain 1st year
SITE TRANSFER: Not Free
PRICING: Starting at $2.59/mo (same renewal price)
DreamHost Pricing and Hosting Plans
Before getting to know about Dreamhost’s features, let us first look at its pricing details.
Dreamhost has a variety of hosting like shared, managed, cloud etc. We’ll look at each of them one by one.
DreamHost Shared Hosting Pricing and Plans
1.Shared Starter: DreamHosts’s Shared Starter plan costs $2.59/month for three years. It includes one website, a free domain name, unlimited traffic, and a free SSL certificate.
2.Shared Unlimited: DreamHosts’s Shared Unlimited costs $4.95/month for three years. It includes unlimited websites, a free domain name, unlimited traffic, free SSL certificate, and unlimited email addresses at your domain.
DreamHost Managed WordPress Hosting Pricing and plans
1.DreamPress: Costs $16.95/month for a site that gets up to 100,000 monthly visits. It includes 30 GB SSD storage, unmetered bandwidth, an SSL certificate, and daily backups
2.DreamPress Plus: Costs $24.95/month for up to 300,000 monthly visitors. It also includes 60 GB SSD storage, unmetered bandwidth, SSL certificate, daily backups, and unlimited CDN (or Content Delivery Network).
3.DreamPress Pro: This costs $71.95/month for a million monthly visits, 120 GB SSD storage, unmetered bandwidth, SSL certificate, daily backups, and unlimited CDN.
Apart from the plans listed above DreamHost also has VPS, Dedicated, and Cloud Hosting options, too.
Why go for Dreamhost?
Dreamhost has been everyone’s favourite because of the sole reason for its performance.
With an above-average uptime (99.94%) and page speeds (648ms), Dreamhost has not let their users regret choosing it.
Although you don’t get a free migration feature with Dreamhost the other features are worth it for a one-time investment. Let us now get forward with the Dreamhost review and discuss what are the pros and cons of this web hosting service.
Great uptime
We can’t help but talk about Dreamhost’s uptime as its major pro. It gives an above-average uptime of 99.94%. Yes! That’s huge and very consistent.
That is not it, Dreamhost also gives an uptime guarantee. So you get credit for the cost of service if uptime falls below the threshold guaranteed.
But bear in mind that although Dreamhost guarantees 100% uptime, scheduled maintenance or user errors aren’t covered in this guarantee.
Above-average speed
Dreamhost gives an excellent speed of about 648ms. This makes Dreamhost one of the fastest web hosting services in the industry.
Not only this, but it has also been consistent throughout months so you can very easily trust these speeds.
97-Day Money-Back Guarantee
A 30-day money-back guarantee is offered by almost every other web hosting service but Dreamhost takes this to another level. Dreamhost web hosting service gives you a money-back guarantee of as long as 97 days.
Yes! You heard it right you have almost 3 months for checking the host and if it suits your needs.
The best part is they don’t keep you in the dark by hiding policies. But what should be kept in mind is that payment by credit cards get refunded. Other payment methods don’t get a refund.
High Basic Plan Limits
Dreamhost’s shared starter plan starts at only $2.59/month. Yes! It is as cheap as two dollars. You might think that with this price range the features will be compromised but that isn’t the case.
With the basic plan, you get one website with a free domain name, and SSL certificate included. The site comes with unlimited storage and bandwidth.
Not only this, but Dreamhost also offers access to SquareSpace, Weebly, and Wix in their app library. You’ll also be able to find Joomla, phpBB, Zen Cart, Drupal, Magento, Shopify, and Tumblr there.
It doesn’t end here, you also get WordPress pre-installed with Dreamhost which can get activated in a single click. Moreover, you don’t need to wait for verification which earlier took time.
Unlimited Disk Space and Network Transfer Limits
With Dreamhost, you don’t have to worry about disk space or network transfer. If your site receives enough traffic then this web hosting service is for you.
There are many unlimited features with Dreamhost but DreamPress, VPS servers, and email do not fall under this. Where, Email is restricted to only 2 GB limits, while MySQL databases are limited to a few GB.
All in all, DreamHost’s shared servers are perfect for relatively small sites.
They’re Carbon Neutral
Since the world is going green why do web hosting services stay back? Dreamhost is one of the few web hosting services that are environmentally conscious.
They are reducing their carbon footprint by including “high-efficiency” cooling and processors in their data centres. They’re also involved in state-level ‘clean wind’ programs to harness renewable resources.
Their offices are LEED and EnergyStar-certified, and everything from lighting to HVAC systems are also energy efficient.
No Higher Renewal Price Increase
Dreamhost is unlike other hosting services that increase the price of a plan two to three folds at the time of renewal. Your plan will renew on the same pricing that you originally signed up for.
Also, DreamHost offers a lower monthly price if you prepay for three years vs. just one or two. So if you pay extra initially, you get to save some extra bucks in the long run.
Cons Of Dreamhost
Good, but Limited Live Chat Support
One thing that you may count as a downside of Dreamhost is that it has automated live chat support so you gotta choose from the pre-recorded queries.
You get connected to a sales representative but it takes time. Moreover, because of time zone issues, you don’t really get what they say “24/7” live support.
No cPanel (Custom Panel)
Dreamhost has its own panel that they have designed but you don’t get access to cPanel. Although this is no major issue some advanced users may find it bothersome.
Also, DreamHost doesn’t provide an automated way to import .tar.gz files (the backup option for migrating sites out of cPanel) so you gotta do it manually using FTP and MySQL.
Only Paid Migrations Offered
This could be the biggest drawback of Dreamhost web hosting service that it doesn’t offer any free site migrations on their shared hosting plans.
Dreamhost charges a $99 one-time fee to move a single site which may add to the cost very much.
Not only this there are few other limitations that come with the migration of sites. Like, Multisite WordPress sites cannot be moved. Moreover, you’ll have to reinstall and set up your theme and plugins as only content inside posts or pages can be migrated to Dreamhost.
Also, any website builder sites, on Wix, Weebly, or SquareSpace cannot be moved either.
So migration is a difficult thing with Dreamhost.
Is Dreamhost recommended?
By this Dreamhost review, you must have understood that this hosting service is highly recommended by us. Although there are few drawbacks like an extra cost for migration and limited live chat support but trust us they just trouble initially.
Once you get used to its feature, you get a smooth experience. You get high loading speed, excellent uptime, so many unlimited features. What else one needs with a hosting service, isn’t it?
So invest in Dreamhost initially and enjoy economical hosting service in the long run.