DreamHost Web Hosting Review
4/5
Prices starting from:
$2.59 / mo.
Reg. Price $5.50 – Get 47% Off!
- Free SSL Certificate
- Modern control panel
- 97-day money back guarantee
- 24/7 Expert Support
Do you have the stunning design and engaging content for your website? If yes then You are ready to roll out on the web and convert quality leads for your business. But what about your site loading speed?
How will you act against server issues?
What about the security of your data?
All of it can be solved by opting for affordable & high-quality web hosting!
But where can you find it?
Well, you are in luck today!
Today, we are going to review the web hosting service provided by the popular company ‘Dream Host’. The company boasts about providing hosting services to 1.5 million + websites!
But how many of those customers are satisfied?
Since web hosting is one of the most critical elements in the success of an online business, you just can’t choose a company by reading its stats. That’s why we have extensively researched Dream Host’s services so that we can provide you with an unbiased, 360, and honest review.
Let’s begin!
DreamHost Hosting Services:
Dream Host has been operating since 1997 and since then they have managed to attract 1.5 million + users, 750k+ WordPress installations, and allegedly over 400k+ happy customers spread across 100 countries.
How did Dream Host manage to grow that massively?
Our research reveals that Dream Host claims one of the top spots in customer service in the web hosting industry. Dream Host not only offers 24/7 human customer support but if you notice the tone of their content, you will notice how frank and supportive they are towards their customers. Take a look at the following screenshot!
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DreamHost Data Centers
DreamHost has only two data centres which are located in the US. Virginia and Oregon to be specific.
DreamHost: Features
Features play an important role in making a brand market famous. Dreamhost is also famous due to its amazing features.
Let’s take a look at some of its most amazing features.
Affordability:
Arguably the most favourite pro of the DreamHost hosting is its unmatched affordability when it comes to monthly plans. As the company offers the facility to cancel the monthly plan at any time without the penalty of any extra fees.
This gives an extra edge to choosing the right plan for you. Since annual and monthly plans have the same features, DreamHost can make the dreams of those who can’t upfront the money as well as those who want to try one month only.
And on top of that, DreamHost provides a 97-day money-back guarantee on shared web hosting plans paid via credit card or Google Checkout.
Website Loading Speed
You have a breathtakingly designed website with amazing content! A regular web user lands upon it and it loads in 5-7 seconds.
Do you think he or she can wait that long?
According to a study by Google, a 1-second delay in mobile can lead to a drop in conversions by up to 20%. And even if that doesn’t emphasize the importance of site speed, Google’s Core Web Vitals update made it essential for SEO to implement quick loading speeds.
DreamHost offers the support of SSDs (200% faster than HDDs by DreamHost’s calculations), built-in caching, and zip compression that is enabled by default which makes the website (Basic WordPress theme with demo content) load around 1-2 seconds.
97-day money-back guarantee
As previously mentioned, DreamHost offers an extensive 97-day money-back guarantee on shared web hosting. We didn’t find any other web hosting platform offering such an extensive money-back guarantee. Therefore, this can be considered as DreamHost’s stand-out feature.
Please note that this offer is only for shared web hosting plans paid via credit card or Google Checkout.
Uptime
Your website has an amazing design, content, and it loads in under 2 seconds as well!
But when your potential customer landed on your site, it happened to be just the time when your website was down.
DreamHost offers a boasting 100% uptime guarantee and through our research, we found that there are virtually no bad reviews about DreamHost’s uptime and their recovery rate in a rarely possible situation was found to be great as well. DreamHost is so confident about its uptime guarantee that they offer a full refund for the time the site was down.
User-Friendly Interface:
DreamHost’s dashboard is specially designed to be easy-to-use so that non-technical persons who want to focus more on their business operations can use it without any hassle.
While most of the managed WordPress hosts use Cpanel, DreamHost offers its customers a custom control panel which makes operations easier for non-techies.
Security
On the web, there are malware, viruses, and bad-intentioned crawler bots everywhere. Even if you have managed to make your website load faster and convert leads, you will have to protect it from the threats it is facing.
But if you do not know the tools you need to make it happen?
DreamHost solves this problem for its customers by providing control over the .htaccess file which is used to control the entry to the site and set up passwords and the ability to control crawler bots’ activity in the areas you don’t need or don’t want to be indexed by search engines.
However, the most favourite part about DreamHost’s security is free SSL certificates. SSL certificates provide an extra layer of security for the websites that offer transactions, online purchases, and any type of personal data from visitors.
Additionally, DreamHost has its firewall plus SSH and SFTP access & support for HTTP/2, PHP 7.
Limitations of DreamHost
Low Count of Server Locations
DreamHost has only two data centres which are located in the US. Virginia and Oregon to be specific. Unlike DreamHost, its competitors have several data centres in different locations which makes DreamHost not an excellent option for people outside the US.
Customer Support
DreamHost excels in customer service through live chat; it doesn’t offer the facility of a phone call. Unlike DreamHost, its competitors offer this facility which makes it a serious con for DreamHost. However, if you choose to pay DreamHost, their support staff is more than happy to assist you.
Complex Installations
Unlike its competitors, DreamHost offers automated and simple installs for very few CMS including WordPress. So, if you wish to use any CMS other than the most popular ones, you will have difficulty using DreamHost’s hosting service.
A Bad Dedicated Hosting Service Provider
If you are a renowned brand and you need dedicated servers for your website, DreamHost is not the best choice. You might want to look at its competitors like Bluehost and HostGator who can offer far more and better features.
And if you have operations outside the US, this con highlights the first one even more.
Pros & Cons of Using DreamHost Hosting
Pro
- One of the most affordable hostings
- Direct WordPress support
- Insanely amazing uptime guarantee
- Free SSLs, Domain Security, and DreamHost’s personal firewall
- 97-day money back guarantee
Cons
- Limited data centers
- No phone support
Who is it for?
The most important thing while reviewing a web hosting is defining its perfect audience which will let you know if you should consider it or not. DreamHost excels in this because of the variety of their plans. The plans will be discussed later in the pricing section with a definition of the target audience of each plan.
However, it should be noted that DreamHost works the best for WordPress users because of its excellent support mentioned previously.
Pricing
So, let’s back to the basics. There are three basic plans of DreamHost; Shared, DreamPress, and VPS. Following are brief explanations of each plan while the features are highlighted in the attached image.
Shared
The shared plan starts at $4.95 in a monthly subscription and this becomes $2.95/mo in the yearly subscription. The features of this plan are tailor-made for bloggers and any small business owners who are just starting. Also, DreamHost supports WordPress amazingly which is the go-to CMS for the mentioned target audience.
Renewal Price:
-
$7.99 for Monthly Subscription
-
$6.99/mo for Yearly Subscription
Managed WordPress:
Managed WordPress hosting plan starts at $12.00 in monthly subscription and you will be paying $16.95/mo in yearly subscription (includes free domain). The features of the plan are planned to be the go-to choice for small business owners and proactive website owners.
Renewal Price:
-
$19.95 for a Monthly Subscription
-
$16.95/mo for Yearly Subscription (No Change)
VPS:
VPS plan starts at $15.00 in monthly subscription and it goes down to $13.75/mo in the yearly subscription. VPS means that a large and private DreamHost server will be split into smaller ones and your website will be hosted on one of them. This makes the website special as it gets access to exclusive features.
This plan works best for E-Commerce and other type large website owners.
Renewal Price:
There is no renewal price in this plan. The same price as mentioned above shall follow as it is.
DreamHost vs HostGator
We know that there are many competitors of DreamHost. So, this review will be incomplete by comparing it with others. In order to achieve the completion let’s compare it with HostGator.
Pricing:
| DreamHost | HostGator |
|---|---|
| Shared – starts at $2.59 per month | Shared – starts at $2.75 per month |
| WordPress – starts at $12 per month | WordPress – starts at $5.95 per month |
| VPS – starts at $10 per month | VPS – starts at $29.95 per month |
Security:
Positive aspects
| DreamHost | Hostgator |
|---|---|
| DreamHost offers a free SSL/TLS certificate, daily backups, Cloudflare integration, and a web application firewall. | Hostgator offers free SSL/TLS certificates & daily backups using cPanel on shared plans and through CodeGuard on more costly ones. |
Negative aspects
| DreamHost | Hostgator |
|---|---|
| DreamHost lacks in providing a malware tool and email security in the plans. | Hostgator collects personal data and shares it with its advertising partners including Amazon Web Services, Google Ads, Facebook, Twitter, and more. Note that all of this is done perfectly within the boundaries of the law by using a clause in their collective privacy policy. |
Customer Reviews:
Word of mouth is the most effective marketing as it provides real-life customer testimonials. Here are some of the words from the wide range of DreamHost customers.
Conclusion
DreamHost is a great hosting provider. It just lacks a few things but it does provide quality output on other requirements. But we do know that none of the products out there is perfect. They all have pros and cons. It totally depends on your needs which hosting you are going to use.
Well, that was it from our review. We hope that this review was useful for you.
Visit www.dreamhost.com
Disclosure of earnings: we use affiliate links in some of the hosting services that appear on this page. This helps our site cover the costs of the site, Thanks for your support. Read more
