DreamHost Reviews

Cost-Effective Web Host Committed to Customers and Communities

With over 400,000 happy customers in 100+ countries and 1.5 million websites hosted, it’s safe to say that DreamHost is one of the industry giants. Being around for more than 23 years, the platform has grown to offer an abundance of features that power your online presence and foster growth. Below, our DreamHost review will focus on the most notable ones. 

100% Uptime Guarantee

A 100% uptime guarantee is rarely seen even among the best web hosting but DreamHost has it. They use multiple data center locations and are equipped with emergency generators, redundant cooling, and constant server monitoring to keep the websites always up and running. 

If DreamHost somehow fails to keep this promise, they’ll credit you with a day’s worth service for every hour that your site is down. The only catch is that the credit can be a maximum of 10% of your hosting fee. Even so, this guarantee is pretty impressive and reassuring.  

Average Speed

Many DreamHost reviews say this is a top-performing web host. The company uses SSD drives, PHP 7, and HTTP/1 to ensure top speed. Yet, plenty of people have often experienced slower loading speeds, especially with the shared plan. The bottom line is, DreamHost’s speed is average at best, so if this is a determining factor for you, you might want to look elsewhere. 

Unlimited Bandwidth

DreamHost offers unlimited bandwidth with all plans. As long as you respect the Terms of Use, there’s no limit to the amount of disk space and bandwidth.  

Paid Site Migrations

DreamHost hosting does offer free website migration but only with managed WordPress hosting plans. Instead of the standard migration process where the technical team does everything, DreamHost comes with a free automated migration plugin that can be used with any active hosting plan.

DreamHost reviews suggest that you don’t need any technical knowledge — just download the plugin, activate it, choose the plan, and get started. They promise no downtime during the migration process and you can bookmark the URL to check the progress at any time. On the other hand, if you opt for other plans, you’ll have to pay a fee of $99 for the service.

Free Domain For One Year

DreamHost offers a one-year free domain registration if you sign up for a 1-year or 3-year plan on Starter Shared, Unlimited Shared Hosting, or any annual DreamPress plan. DreamHost reviews confirm that the regular prices are affordable. For example, a .net extension costs $10.99, .com is $6.99, .blog is $4.99, and .club is only $0.99. All domains include free WHOIS privacy for the life of the domain. Additionally, you get unlimited free subdomains. 

Free Email Hosting

All DreamHost website hosting plans except Starter Shared and DreamCompute include email hosting. You can add an email hosting service to the other plans that don’t include it for free. The price starts at $1.67 a month per mailbox. This service works with any domain you have, helping you organize your emails and access them anytime you need, on any device. An added benefit is the spam filtering that keeps your inbox clear from spam, viruses, and phishing attacks. 

Proprietary Control Panel

DreamHost is one of the few web hosting providers that doesn’t use the industry-standard cPanel. This can be a downside especially for advanced users that have already got accustomed to the traditional cPanel. While the proprietary panel is easy-to-use and provides admin access to everything needed to get the most out of your website, some DreamHost reviews say that users needed some guidance at first due to the lack of familiarity, but once they got used to it, everything went smoothly.

Free Website Builder

Remixer is DreamHost’s proprietary website builder with a quick-start wizard, over 200 starter sites with customizable designs to choose from, 100+ design blocks, and drag-and-drop features. Plus, you get real-time SEO recommendations. 

Nifty One-Click Installer

Beyond the proprietary DreamHost website builder, you get access to other popular website builders like Weebly, Wiz, and SquareSpace in their app library. Thanks to the swift one-click installer, you can easily start using other CMS like Joomla, Drupal, Magento, and Shopify. WordPress is immediately ready upon signup which is perfect for beginners. 

DreamHost Support: Limited Availability but Great Quality

The DreamHost customer service is more limited than the support offered by other web hosts. Going through dozens of reviews of their support service, we’ve found out that many users are annoyed by the lack of phone support and the limited DreamHost live chat option.

Namely, the support team is available 24/7 only via email, with the live chat is active during a specific time only (5:30 AM — 9:30 PM PST). DreamHost makes up for the lack of phone support by providing the option to request a callback from the technical team. You can get one call back for free and up to three per month at an additional fee. 

That said, DreamHost web hosting reviews indicate that users are satisfied with the quality of the support they get. Though the waiting times will be longer for support tickets (usually 24 hours) and you can’t chat live outside of the given timeframe, the team has a great track record of resolving issues.

They are knowledgeable, professional, and friendly. Even when we compared DreamHost vs HostGator (which has a 24/7 available team via both live chat and phone), DreamHosts’s support reigns supreme. Many HostGator reviews reveal quite a few complaints about their support quality which isn’t the case with DreamHost.

It’s also important to note that DreamHost has a very comprehensive knowledge base that is continually updated. You can find answers to the most frequently asked questions as well as step-by-step tutorials.

Swift Security Features

DreamHost’s focus on security is remarkable. They offer an end-to-end security suite with services ranging from free SSL security to multi-factor authentication. One of the most notable features is the free automated daily backup service. Other features worth mentioning include Web Application Firewalls and grsecurity kernels. 

The DreamShield (formerly Malware Remover) is an in-house made tool that performs weekly scans for outdated software, bad file permissions, and malicious code thus keeping your site safe. As seen in many DreamHost reviews, users appreciate the web host’s high level of security.

Green Hosting

DreamHost is one of the few hosting providers that care about the environment. They take steps to reduce their carbon footprint and make the world a greener place. DreamHost data centers feature a high-efficiency cooling infrastructure and processors, powered by grids that get electricity from renewable sources. Additionally, their offices use advanced lighting control systems, balanced HVAC plants, and LED and CFL lighting. Their employees are encouraged to use public transportation, work from home, and recycle. 

Impressive Money-Back Guarantee

DreamHost goes above and beyond to provide good hosting services for its users. They offer a 97-day guarantee for all shared hosting plans and a 30-day money-back guarantee for all DreamPress plans. This gives you plenty of time to decide whether DreamHost is or isn’t the right choice for you. We should note that the money-back guarantee applies to web hosting fees excluding any add-ons.

DreamHost Pricing Overview 

All DreamHost plans are reasonably priced and offer good value for money. They have low introductory prices valid for the first three months. Plus, you can often snag a DreamHost coupon and get yourself an even better deal. The DreamHost cost for renewal isn’t significantly higher either, especially compared to the competition. 

DreamHost Shared Hosting

DreamHost’s shared hosting is an affordable option suitable for blogs, personal, and database-driven sites. There are two plans and three subscription options (monthly, 1-year, and 3-year). With both plans, you get WordPress pre-installed, support for unlimited traffic and MySQL databases, free migrations, access to the site builder, free SSL certificate. 

Shared Starter

• Monthly — $4.95/month ($6.99 after renewal)
• 1 year — $3.95/month
• 3 years — $2.59/month

Shared Unlimited

• Monthly — $10.95/month ($11.99 after the introductory period)
• 1 year — $4.95/month ($9.95 after renewal)
• 3 years — $4.95/month ($7.95 after the first three months)

DreamHost VPS 

Designed to suit the needs of larger businesses, DreamHost’s VPS provides all the essential features without the high price tag. You get managed performance, unlimited bandwidth and traffic, dedicated and expandable resources, and top-notch security. With any plan, you can host an unlimited number of domains and websites, and create an unlimited number of sub-accounts. Unlimited bandwidth, email accounts, and MySQL databases are also included. 

Dreamhost VPS reviews show that users are satisfied that for a few bucks more than the shared plan they get a noticeable speed increase. They also say that when comparing storage, processors, RAM, and features, DreamHost stands out among the competition.

There are four VPS plans to choose from, all of which are listed below.

VPS Basic — 1GB RAM, 30GB SSD storage

• Monthly — $15/month
• 1 year — $13.75/month
• 3 years — $10/month

VPS Business — 2GB RAM, 60GB SSD storage

• Monthly — $30/month
• 1 year — $27.50/month
• 3 years — $20/month

VPS Professional — 4GB RAM, 120GB SSD storage

• Monthly — $60/month
• 1 year — $55/month
• 3 years — $40/month

VPS Enterprise — 8GB RAM, 240GB SSD storage

• Monthly — $120/month
• 1 year — $110/month
• 3 years — $80/month

DreamHost Dedicated Server

Larger businesses with heavy traffic need a dedicated server, and DreamHost promises excellent performance on this front. The servers come with either HDD or SSD hard drives and provide 24/7 DDoS protection and 2N+2 redundancy. The research for our DreamHost review indicated that everything is managed for you but DreamHost also grants you full root access and SSH for maximum control. 

There are nine dedicated server options to choose from.

• Standard 4 — $149/month — Intel Xeon 4-Core 8-Thread, 4GB, 1TB HDD
• Standard 8 — $189/month —Intel Xeon 4-Core 8-Thread, 8GB, 1TB HDD
• Standard 16 —$229/month — Intel Xeon 4-Core 8-Thread, 16GB, 1TB HDD
• Enhanced 16 — $279/month — Intel Xeon 12-Core 24-Thread, 16GB, 2TB HDD
• Enhanced 32 — $329/month — Intel Xeon 12-Core 24-Thread, 32GB, 2TB HDD
• Enhanced 64 — $379/month — Intel Xeon 12-Core 24-Thread, 64GB, 2TB HDD
• Enhanced SSD 16 — $279/month — Intel Xeon 12-Core 24-Thread, 16GB, 240GB SSD
• Enhanced SSD 32 — $329/month — Intel Xeon 12-Core 24-Thread, 32GB, 240GB SSD
• Enhanced SSD 64 — $379/month — Intel Xeon 12-Core 24-Thread, 64GB, 240GB SSD

DreamHost Cloud Hosting

Designed to meet your needs, DreamCompute allows you to deploy and customize the cloud servers. It delivers great speed and gives you full root access. The code is open source so the cloud will scale with you. The accounts come with 100GB storage and free bandwidth. You’ll only get charged for up to 600 hours (25 days in a month) which is pretty generous of DreamHost. 

There are three options to choose from:

• 512MB RAM Server — 1 vCPU, 80GB SSD disk, max $4.50/month ($0.0075/hour)
• 2GB RAM Server — 1 vCPU, 80GB SSD disk, max $12.00/month ($0.02/hour)
• 8GB RAM Server — 4 vCPU, 80GB SSD disk, max $48.00/month ($0.08/hour)

DreamHost Managed WordPress Hosting

DreamHost web host is one of the best WordPress hosting companies and for a good reason. The plans are packed with useful features at the fraction of the cost. Many DreamHost WordPress reviews indicate that users consider the hosting affordable, especially given the wealth of features. 

Automatic updates, as well as installation of popular plugins and themes, come with every WP hosting plan. Regardless of the plan you choose, you get access to automated daily and on-demand backups that provide superb protection. The built-in caching ensures you have a fast site with top-notch performance. You can easily create a staging site with one click to test new themes, plugins, or code before publishing. Additionally, the plans include Jetpack, free email accounts, free domain for one year, and advanced features like Shell Access, SFTP, WP-CLI, to name a few. 

To find out which of the top WordPress-endorsed hosts is better, we made a Bluehost vs DreamHost comparison. The results show that Bluehost is a better choice if you need a consistent loading speed and you’re accustomed to using cPanel. That said, DreamHost offers robust security, easy scalability, domain name privacy protection, and a long money-back guarantee period. 

There are three WordPress hosting plans to choose from:

• DreamPress — from $16.95/month — 30GB SSD storage, Jetpack Free;
• DreamPress Plus — starting at $24.95/month — 60GB SSD storage, Jetpack Professional, unlimited CDN;
• DreamPress Pro — from $71.95/month — ups DreamPress Plus with 120GB SSD storage and priority support. 

The Verdict

DreamHost is a reputable web host with reliable uptime, robust security, and a wide range of plans and features. They also have low renewal prices, as well as a more-than-generous money-back guarantee. On the downside, our research and DreamHost reviews indicated that loading speeds are average, and the live chat support is limited to only a few hours a day. Also, they have a proprietary control panel instead of cPanel which might need a little getting used to. Still, with the pros outweighing the cons, this is a solid choice to consider, especially for WordPress hosting and sites with lighter traffic.