What is DreamHost?
DreamHost has a good range of different services and packages, ranging from VPS hosting and dedicated hosting to flexible cloud hosting configurations and its more affordable shared hosting packages.
DreamHost isn't quite the industry giant, but it has grown from zero to 400,000 customers in 22 years since its inception in 1997. Its customers come from over 100 different countries and power over 1.5 million websites and 750,000 WordPress installations.
But is DreamHost the best hosting company for you? Well, that depends.
It is an affordable hosting provider, whose features are reduced in order to keep prices low. That might sound great if you're on a tight budget. But what about quality? Can DreamHost keep it high?
Features
Minimalist approach
DreamHost is not one of those hosts that offer an endless list of features. Nonetheless, it provides a sufficient suite of tools to get you started, and it makes up for its lack of features by being easy to use and reasonably reliable.
Of course, some of its more advanced plans, like VPS hosting and cloud hosting, come with additional features. Even its cheap shared hosting packages come with a SSD storage, email hosting, and a free domain name. If you want to use the website builder, however, you will have to pay a monthly fee.
Open Source
There is a difference between offering open source software and actively supporting it. DreamHost goes from action to speech, by actively contributing to the open source movement and WordPress in particular, by creating and contributing to code snippets, community libraries, and more.
This may not have a noticeable impact on you as an individual, but it can only be a good thing for the business as a whole.
Respect for privacy
DreamHost may be a budget brand, but they take your privacy seriously. In fact, you'll be happy to know that it has some free privacy features pretty decent, including a comprehensive anti-spam policy and free WHOIS privacy.
At first glance, you might ask yourself why bother to obscure WHOIS information if you have nothing to hide, but the truth is that the fact Hiding your WHOIS information can reduce spam and make it harder for hackers to target you.
100% availability guarantee
You can't get much better than that. DreamHost guarantees 100% uptime on all of their hosting plans. Moreover, it is not a simple marketing campaign, but a compensation. You'll receive a 1-day charge credit for every hour you're not available, up to a maximum of 10% of the monthly fee.
Eco-friendly web hosting
If you're trying to reduce the carbon footprint of your business, DreamHost is a great choice. It uses a high efficiency cooling infrastructure in its data centers, and it is powered by networks that obtain electricity from renewable sources.
The company is also implementing a series of recycling plans and other green initiatives on site in its offices to reduce its impact.
Installing WordPress and connecting a domain
Installing WordPress is so easy, all you have to do is wait. You can automate the process by ticking a box when registering. You'll receive an email from DreamHost once WordPress is installed, and you can start using it right away.
Setting up a domain name and setting up your free Cloudflare CDN is also ridiculously easy.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that it's the easiest setup I've ever seen.
Dedicated WordPress packages
DreamHost's main offering is its WordPress hosting packages, which include everything from easy installers, free themes, and more than 50,000 plugins that you might have to pay for elsewhere.
DreamHost even automates updates so you don't have to worry too much about them, although if you heavily customize your site, you might prefer to use manual updates to make sure a failed automatic update doesn't take your site offline.
Integrated caching
Built-in caching doesn't come standard, but it's good to know it's available when you need it. You'll have to pay a small fee for this privilege, but it can help your website load faster and can even prevent downtime by providing a cached version of your site to visitors if they can't reach the main server.
Performances
DreamHost tends to get pretty good reviews for its performance, with some users calling it a safe haven compared to the big hosts. That said, a lot of people have experienced downtime or 500 internal server errors, and by all accounts, the support team varies from slow to non-existent.
I see this a lot with hosting providers: server configurations work well when you're a new customer, but as soon as you run into a problem, they take forever to fix it, leaving your site paralyzed or even offline for several days.
From my point of view, there is not much to eat, and the Sucuri page load test presented above helps to demonstrate this. Its average load speeds are terrible, ten times slower than some of the other sites I've tested.
Using a CDN can help reduce these load times, but it can't work miracles. If speed is what you're looking for, it's best to look elsewhere.
Customer Support
DreamHost offers support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and claims to have won awards for it. However, not all of its customers are of this opinion, and there are horror stories of people who have waited weeks for their questions to be answered.
It has a knowledge base and a few chat rooms, both of which can be useful if needed, but if they don't answer your question, it also offers email support and live chat between 8 am and 4 pm Pacific Time, Monday through Friday.
I told myself that I would test them and so I started by the live chat agent, which is managed by a robot and it's not particularly well set up, making it difficult to talk to a human. I finally got there, and I also had a relatively pleasant experience when I filled out a support ticket.
When you talk to a human being, he is pretty polite and very helpful, which is a good surprise after this initially clumsy interface.
Also, one of the great things about DreamHost is that it has its own discussion forums where you can ask for help from other customers, as well as from official company representatives. This can be especially helpful if you're having trouble getting help from the customer service team, which can happen a bit more often than you think.
Pricing
DreamHost's price is really what sets it apart from the competition. When you combine the cheap plans with its monthly billing and unlimited resources, it's pretty easy to see why it's quite popular., even if you take into account the disadvantages.
As for payment options... well, there are few of them. It accepts major credit cards, but if you were hoping to pay via PayPal or cryptocurrency, forget all that.
DreamHost web hosting
DreamHost VPS Hosting
DreamHost dedicated server
DreamHost WordPress Hosting
One free domain is included with the purchase of any hosting service from DreamHost.
Cancellations and refunds
Want to cancel your DreamHost account?
It's fairly easy to do and takes less than a minute. You need to go to the billing section of your admin panel to file a cancellation request.
I was particularly impressed with the clarity with which they communicated with me throughout the process. This is one of the only hosts I saw that automatically told me when I could expect to get a refund without me having to contact their support team.
FAQs
Will my hosting cost increase when I renew with DreamHost?
DreamHost's plans all go up in price when your original deal comes to an end. Some of these plans can be quite extreme, so be sure to read the offer carefully before you commit.
Does DreamHost have an uptime guarantee?
A 100% uptime guarantee comes with every DreamHost plan.
And if you suffer from downtime, you receive compensation equal to the cost of one day's accommodation (up to a maximum of 10% of the total cost of your accommodation).
What performance tools for WordPress does DreamHost have?
DreamHost WordPress plans all come with Jetpack - the free version with the DreamPress standard package and Jetpack professional with DreamPress Plus and DreamPress Pro. Since Jetpack is one of the most popular plugins, it's a useful addition.
If you need to find a hosting provider that specializes in WordPress, check out my List of the best web hosting services. All offer optimized hosting for WordPress with features to improve the performance of your site.
Final Verdict
DreamHost is fine for what it is, but sometimes its customer support can be a real nightmare.
It's reasonably feature-light, charging a monthly fee if you want to use the website builder (something a lot of other hosts offer for free as part of their shared hosting plans).
On the bright side, DreamHost is pretty cheap for what it offers.
If you're looking for streamlined, cost-effective shared hosting, DreamHost might just be the hosting provider for you.
DreamHost may offer a good service at a reasonable price, but does it live up to best other web hosting services ? Not necessarily.
