DreamHost.com review

First impression

DreamHost is an employee-owned, Los Angeles-based web hosting provider and domain name registrar, that was originally founded in 1997 while its founders, Dallas Bethune, Josh Jones, Michael Rodriguez, and Sage Weil, were still undergraduates at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California. The company was originally named New Dream Network and later changed its name to DreamHost. Since their humble dorm room beginnings, their customer base has exploded to over 400,000 clients and more than 1.5 million websites that span more than 100 countries.

They currently offer a variety of hosting services including Shared Hosting, WordPress Hosting, Dedicated Server Hosting, Email Hosting, Domain Registrations, and Cloud Services, all from eco-friendly data centers that come with an unbeatable 100% uptime guarantee.

Registration

Registration takes place in several steps, which are fairly simple and understandable. But you have to fill out a few of the mandatory fields.

Trial Period

Dreamhost currently doesn’t offer any free demos or trials on any of their managed hosting plans, however, they do offer a lengthy 97-day money-back guarantee on Shared Hosting. All their plans, whether it be Shared, Managed or VPS, have month-to-month payment options so that you can test them out without any long-term commitments. Should you feel they are not the right fit for your needs you can cancel your services by accessing the Manage Account panel page and initiate it from there. 

It is important to note that their "97-Day Money-Back Guarantee" offer is only applicable to credit card payments for shared web hosting. Other forms of payment, as well as Domain Registrations and SSL Certificates, are non-refundable. 

Billing Cycle

When first signing up for a hosting account with Dreamhost, you'll need to use a Credit Card. This is to prevent fraudulent accounts from being opened. You may also use PayPal to sign up for services like Shared Hosting plans, DreamPress (which is DreamHost's managed WordPress hosting), or email-only accounts. 

After the initial payment is received and your account is approved, you may make subsequent payments using all major Credit and Debit Cards (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and Diners Club), Electronic Checks / ACH, PayPal, or Money Orders.

The discounted prices they list on their website are for new customers only. At the end of your purchase term, the prices will renew at the current rate. 

Control Panel

Unlike most Linux-based hosting providers, cPanel is not an option on any of the DreamHost plans. Instead, they offer a custom-built, easy-to-use control panel, named DreamHost panel, to manage your websites, databases, emails, and billing all from one location. They even claim that most of their customers find this panel to be more intuitive and easier to use than cPanel.

In addition, this panel runs on separate servers and doesn’t take up any resources on your web server.

Limits

Dreamhost offers 2 plans on their Shared hosting to choose from. “Starter Shared” comes with 50GB hosting space and a limit of 1 website, while “Unlimited Shared” has no limits on the allocated disc space or websites you are allowed to run. Both include free domain registration, unlimited traffic, free WordPress migrations, WP Website Builder, a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate, and run on super-fast NVMe SSD drives.

Their VPS hosting features 4 plans, VPS Basic, VPS Business, VPS Professional, and VPS Enterprise. Each with a bit more RAM and space allocated than the previous one. The entry-level plan comes standard with 1 GB RAM and 30 GB NVMe SSD Storage, whereas the top-tier plan boasts 8 GB RAM and 240 GB SSD Storage.

Each virtual server hosting plan allocates resources that only your website can use. This equals unrivaled power, low latency, and high performance.

Website Builder

Dreamhost offers their customers a website builder, plainly named WP Website Builder, that works with WordPress. It is an easy site creation wizard tool that comes jam-packed with free professional templates, and a simple and easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor, carefully designed to simplify WordPress even more.

This builder is included free of charge on all their Shared Hosting plans.

Security

Security comes in the form of free Let's Encrypt SSL certificates, that are available on all hosted domains, as well as complimentary domain name privacy. They also offer a paid-for service called DreamShield, their own Malware Scanner, that you can enable through the control panel. It allows you to scan your website to ensure your site is free of any malicious code that could potentially compromise sensitive information.

When you add DreamShield, it immediately runs a scan on your site and will automatically scan it thereafter on a weekly basis.

OS

DreamHost servers currently run the Ubuntu and Debian Operating Systems, which are composed mostly of free, open-source software. Sadly, Microsoft technologies are not supported at the moment, and you will need to look elsewhere should you need to host a site built on the Windows platform.

Support

Support is mainly provided via Email, a Ticketing System (that is logged from inside your panel), and Live Chat that is available 24/7. However, DreamHost does have an option whereby customers can request a callback from technical support. By default, callbacks are not included with any standard hosting packages, but you can add three callbacks per month to your account for a nominal monthly fee. Support also offers a one-time callback feature for a fee as well. 

Their online chat and email support, however, is more than adequate. I tried them out outside of normal business hours and still got a reply within 15 seconds on their Live Chat, from a well-trained and friendly support agent. There is also a pretty decent knowledge base available should you want to do fault-finding yourself.

Conclusion

You need to focus on the right things to get ahead, and more importantly, stay ahead in such a competitive market as hosting, and I feel Dreamhost does just that! Their prices are very competitive, uptime is 100%, servers are performance optimized, and support is excellent, their main target audience is WordPress users and with 810+ million websites running WordPress, you can hardly go wrong...I can go on and on. Another big factor that stands out for me personally, is the fact that they care equally much about their staff and their well-being, as they do about their customers and the environment. Overall an excellent company that I would be proud to host with.