As a hosting review expert/website owner myself, it made sense I reviewed Dreamhost – one of the most popular hosting providers in the world. Dreamhost is known for its speed and reliability, and over 1.5 million domains trust them. In the rest of this piece, I’ll share my thoughts on the host’s pricing, overall features, performance, ease of use, and support.

DreamHost delivers on its promise of comprehensive hosting solutions. Their basic shared plans are packed with value-added features that ensure optimal performance and user convenience. Customers receive a free SSL certificate and domain, the advantage of SSD storage, unmetered bandwidth, and SSH access. Furthermore, the pre-installed WordPress, automated migrations, and the Dreamhost custom control panel streamline the hosting experience, making it both robust and user-friendly.

Reviews across various platforms highlight the trust that users place in Dreamhost. On HostAdvice, they boast a commendable score of 4.3 based on 290 reviews. Trustpilot mirrors this positive sentiment, giving them an impressive 4.7 from a whopping 4664 reviews. Additionally, their dedication to service quality and customer satisfaction is underscored by an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau.

DreamHost has demonstrated unwavering commitment and excellence in web hosting, making them a top pick for both novices and seasoned webmasters seeking dependable hosting solutions.

DreamHost

Dreamhost is a reliable hosting company amid a sea of them. With unmatched service since 1996, they ensure your website has top-tier functionality and reliable performance. Explore Dreamhost and maximize your online presence.

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Pros and Cons

Pros

Cons

Rating Breakdown

With the huge number of hosting providers on the market, it’s important that we have a standardized way to compare them. At HostAdvice, we created a hosting provider rating methodology to do just that.

So irrespective of the kind of hosting or features a particular provider offers, our methodology evaluates every important factor and scores each host based on how they perform.

Dreamhost Prices & Plans – 2023

Dreamhost offers shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud and WordPress plans (managed and unmanaged). They also offer email hosting, a website builder, and a unique suite of pro services – web design, marketing, management etc.

On most of their plans, Dreamhost offers a remarkable 97-day money back guarantee – enough time to decide if you like their services and the right to cancel anytime.

And when you finally decide to commit to Dreamhost, you can pay via a credit card, debit card or Paypal.

Shared Hosting

Dreamhost’s unlimited shared plan is the most recommended as you get everything from the ‘starter’ plus unlimited websites to host and unlimited storage… for the same price range.

VPS

I’d personally recommend Dreamhost’s VPS business plans if you’re just getting started with VPS hosting. 60 GB SSD storage and unmetered bandwidth at $27.50/month.

Dedicated Server

I personally recommend Dreamhost’s standard dedicated hosting plan if you’re just getting started with dedicated resources. You get 1 TB HDD, uncapped bandwidth, and 4 GB RAM in an Intel Xeon 4-Core 8-Thread.

Dreamhost offers three pricing tiers each under its standard and enhanced dedicated plans charged based on the amount of RAM you get.

For standard:

4 GB RAM – 1 TB HDD storage – $149

8 GB RAM – 1 TB HDD storage – $189

16 GB RAM – 1 TB HDD storage – $229

For enhanced:

16 GB RAM – 2 TB HDD – $279

32 GB RAM – 2 TB HDD – $339

64 GB RAM – 2 TB HDD – $379

16 GB RAM – 240 GB SSD – $279

32 GB RAM – 240 GB SSD – $329

64 GB RAM – 240 GB SSD – $379

Dreamhost’s entry level and most affordable WordPress plans. I’d recommend the enhanced that gives you unmetered storage and bandwidth for the same price as the most basic.

Features

• Free domain and SSL
• 1-click installs
• 97-day money back guarantee
• Unmetered bandwidth and storage
• Custom control panel

Dreamhost has some rather special features but among all these, the most prominent is probably its customized control panel – Dreamhost does not offer cPanel but rather, a custom-built control panel for user friendliness. Dreamhost also offers a remarkable 97-day money back guarantee on its plans.

Dreamhost also offering VPS-powered WordPress plans is not something you see everyday.

DreamHost

Dreamhost is a reliable hosting company amid a sea of them. With unmatched service since 1996, they ensure your website has top-tier functionality and reliable performance. Explore Dreamhost and maximize your online presence.

Visit DreamHost

Learn more about DreamHost:

Performance

If you’re considering hosting your website on Dreamhost, it’s important that you know how well your website will perform – as a result of how the host’s servers perform.

Some important performance metrics to measure are the host’s server response time, uptime, and fully loaded time.

The quicker the host’s servers respond when a user visits your website, the quicker your web pages will load and be available to the user. This will mean longer engagement times, less bounce, and more conversions for you.

As a standard, Google recommends a fully loaded time between 1-2s. 99.9% uptime has become the industry’s standard and Dreamhost assures you of that.

To measure their server performance, I tested metrostyle.com – a domain hosted on Dreamhost – on GTMetrix and these were the results:

The server response time averaged around 250 ms and had a fully loaded time of 2.1s. The host also had a very impressive overall performance of 99%:

DreamHost

Dreamhost is a reliable hosting company amid a sea of them. With unmatched service since 1996, they ensure your website has top-tier functionality and reliable performance. Explore Dreamhost and maximize your online presence.

Visit DreamHost

Level Of Support

Dreamhost promises support 24/7/365 via:

Live chat

To talk to a real person, you will have to be a paid customer, otherwise you only have a bot at your disposal.

While they have their place, their replies will of course be rigid. Via the bot chat, you can also create a support ticket and email thread to an agent who’ll respond in less than 24 hours.

Phone support

Phone support is also only available for paid customers.

Discussion forums

For some reason, Dreamhost’s discussion forums redirect to knowledgebase page. My guess is they’re also available only when you’re a paid customer and can be accessed via the control panel.

Knowledgebase

Dreamhost has a well-stacked knowledgebase and help desk equipped with a search engine to give you a library of answers to whatever questions you may have about their packages, how-tos, etc.:

User-Friendliness – Ease of use

Registration

Registering on Dreamhost is as simple as buying one of their plans. Using their shared plans as an example, simply click the ‘Get started’ and then ‘Sign up now’.

The chat portal seems connected with real humans (when you’re about to pay lol).

You’ll be asked whether you want to register a new domain, have an existing domain, or will get to that later:

You can also choose how you want to pay – monthly, yearly, or triennially.

Next, you’ll be asked to fill in your details – payment details (card or Paypal), billing info, your account info (name and email), and whether you want to add extra features like email and Dreamhost protection.

Proceed to checkout and you have your account ready!

DreamHost Control Panel

Dreamhost doesn’t support cPanel – they made it super clear. Instead, they offer a custom-built control panel. From here, you can manage your domains, mail, FTP & SSH, Support and much more!

So there’s no separate panel for the more technical stuff. Everything can be controlled from one dashboard, making the host incredibly intuitive.

Installing WordPress on Dreamhost

Dreamhost’s WordPress plans come with WordPress pre-installed and what’s more? You get automatic WordPress updates, free auto WordPress migrations, and the WP website builder.

Also, Dreamhost offers a 1-click WordPress installer, however, to use it, your website must be fully hosted on Dreamhost – i.e not parked, mirrored, redirected, or DNS only.

To install WordPress in the WordPress panel, click ‘Install WordPress’ then ‘Learn more and install’. Fill in the ‘install to’, ‘select database’, ‘deluxe install’, and then add the ‘WP website builder’.

Click ‘Install it for me now’.

Add an email account with Dreamhost

Do note that Dreamhost’s shared starter plan doesn’t include email and you’ll have to pay for it separately. However, on the shared unlimited and every other plan, you get unlimited emails.

To add an email to your domain on Dreamhost, in the panel, click ‘Manage emails’. Click ‘Create new email address’ and then fill in the details:

Choose an address, mailbox name, password (pick or auto-generate), set disk storage, choose whether you want daily warnings… and voila! Your email is ready.

Conclusion: Do We Recommend Dreamhost?

Dreamhost is indeed a great host with several unique features in its offering – a 97-day guarantee, VPS plans specifically for WordPress, and cPanel-free user interface that makes it especially great for hosting newbies.

So, do I recommend Dreamhost? I do. My only qualms with them is their support could be much better. No live chat or phone support unless you’re a paid customer. If you’ll be needing a lot of help, they may not be the best choice for you as their contact hours are limited.

Asides from those, I like how their plans are straight to the point when compared to other hosting providers on the market.

DreamHost

Dreamhost is a reliable hosting company amid a sea of them. With unmatched service since 1996, they ensure your website has top-tier functionality and reliable performance. Explore Dreamhost and maximize your online presence.

Visit DreamHost