If you are looking for a cheap hosting service with a bunch of exciting features, then I am pretty sure that you have stumbled upon the name “DreamHost”.
DreamHost web hosting is one of the most popular hosting services available in the market.
DreamHost hosting service was founded in 1997 in California. Today, they have over 1.5 million websites and more than 40000 customers worldwide.
DreamHost’s hosting plans come with many popular features like WordPress, website builder, and Weebly. They offer unlimited traffic and unlimited storage with every single plan.
In this DreamHost hosting review, we will see why DreamHost hosting service became so popular, some key features of DreamHost Hosting, and last but not least, “Pros” and “Cons” of choosing DreamHost as your web hosting.
Key Features of DreamHost Web Hosting Service
- 100% uptime guarantee for every plan
- 24/7 Customer Support.
- Unlimited traffic.
- Unlimited storage even with their basic plans.
- State-of-the-art security features.
- 1-click WordPress Install.
- Easy to navigate the Control Panel.
- 97-day money-back guarantee.
Pros of Using DreamHost Hosting
Although DreamHost hosting offers a variety of powerful features and functionality to start your blogging journey quickly.
I will not cover each feature; however, I will highlight the most essential elements you need to consider while buying DreamHost Hosting Service.
Let’s see the fantastic features of DreamHost, which make them stand out from the crowd.
1: Good Plans with Some Pretty Exciting Features
DreamHost shared hosting plans start at $2.59/month. It comes with some pretty exciting features in this particular price bracket. With their basic plan, you will get a free domain name and a free SSL certificate.
It also comes with WordPress Pre-installed, and you will get many other plugins to install at a single click. You can immediately get to work right after signing up for your membership.
2: Solid Loading Speeds
Loading speed or response time is a very crucial part of any hosting service provider. Loading speeds will ultimately determine if customers will wait for your website to load or leave and go somewhere else.
Although DreamHost hosting doesn’t provide the best loading speed in the industry, it is also not that bad. The overall response time (740 ms) was pretty average during our testing phase. In a real-life scenario, it is speedy.
I have seen very few hosting services providing speeds better than this. I can assure you that this is the best speed you are going to get at this price point.
3: Website Builder Tool
DreamHost web hosting provides its own website builder tool called “Remixer”. This particular website builder provides many attractive templates.
You can also add photos and videos of your own templates to design an attractive website. Remixer provides a drag-and-drop interface that is very easy to use. If you’re building your first website, you can easily design it with the help of Remixer.
4: cPanel
Instead of the industry-standard Cpanel, DreamHost provides a Custom control panel. The control panel provided by DreamHost hosting is pretty straightforward and easy to understand, even for beginners.
You will get all the essential features right on the dashboard of this control panel, starting with email, billing, and website traffic, and you can also manage your website.
If you are shifting from Cpanel to this control panel, you may need a week or two to get used to this new interface.
5: Free WordPress Website Migration
If you have a WordPress Website, this might be good news because DreamHost offers free website migration only for WordPress websites.
They provide a free website migration for your WordPress website with absolutely zero downtime. But the bad news is that if you are using any other content management system like “Weebly” or “Wix,” you need to pay $99 extra for the migration charges.
6: Money-Back Guarantee
Many hosting service providers offer a money-back guarantee to see if you are happy with their services or not.
But the most extraordinary fact about DreamHost is that they provide all their users with a 97-day money-back guarantee.
This is more than three months, and it shows that they truly stand by the service they are providing.
There are no hidden terms and conditions behind this money-back guarantee, and they are pretty transparent about it.
7: Email Hosting Service
DreamHost hosting provides an email hosting service so you can have a professional email id for your business. It makes DreamHost a one-stop solution for all your hosting needs.
Their email hosting starts from $1.67/month, and they have 25 GB of mail storage and desktop and mobile synchronization features with their email hosting.
They also provide Google Workspace hosting for all your business needs at just $6/month.
8: Environment Friendly
DreamHost hosting is a “Green” hosting service provider. They are environmentally conscious, and they emphasize renewable energies.
I know that this fact doesn’t affect your website’s performance, but it reduces the carbon footprint generated by their servers.
They use LED lights and also have high-efficiency coolers for their servers.
It is a really great initiative taken by them, and not many hosting service providers are aware of the environmental effects they are causing.
Cons of DreamHost Hosting Service
For advantage, you should always check the cons of every hosting provider to get perfect hosting for your business that you never regret later.
DreamHost hosting provides an excellent hosting service to grow your business quickly. However, it has some disadvantages also.
Let’s have a look at some cons of using the DreamHost hosting service.
1: Limited Customer Support
Although DreamHost said that they offer 24/7 customer support, that is not entirely true because their whole staff is based in the US, that’s why their available time is around (8-9 pacific standard time).
If you want help outside this time window, you will have to chat with their AI assistant, or you will have to wait in the ticketing line, which is very time-consuming. But You can take the help of their knowledgebase for finding out the most common queries.
2: Average Uptime
DreamHost claimed to have 100% uptime on their official website. But for over a year, their uptime hasn’t been so excellent. They are now providing 99.62% uptime which is pretty low compared to other websites.
If the uptime of your hosting service provider is insufficient, then you will lose many visitors. It can be a massive deal for many people.
They also assure you that if your monthly uptime falls under a particular threshold, then your account will be credited with a full day of hosting for each hour of downtime.
Read Also – FastComet vs DreamHost | WPX vs Kinsta
3: Paid Site Migration (WordPress not Included)
If you are not a WordPress user, you will have to pay an extra fee for additional migration charges. However, this feature is free for WordPress users.
You have to pay some extra bucks for the other CMS, or you can do this manually. Other hosting providers at this price point provide this service for all CMS, but unfortunately, DreamHost hosting Doesn’t.
4: Some Features Within the Dashboard Cost You Extra Money
It is a significant setback for DreamHost users because some of the features in the dashboard are only to be used for premium users.
I think they should have enabled all the features for all the plans provided by them.
Charging extra bucks for the features that are already on your dashboard isn’t really a good thing.
5: Cost Is as Low as Some Competitors
Although the basic shared plan for DreamHost comes at a pretty low cost, it isn’t the lowest. There are other hosting providers who are providing hosting services at a cheaper price.
If you want a cheaper hosting service, then you may need to consider another option. It is definitely not the cheapest hosting available in the market.
GreenGeeks offers a cheaper price than DreamHost, so in this case, you should definitely check their official website.
6: Data Centers
They only have 2 data centers, and both are located in the United States. One data center is located in Virginia, and another one is located in Oregon.
It may be a downside for those who live outside of the US because they don’t have a server outside the US. It might be a huge deal-breaker for many people.
7: Security and Other Features
DreamHost provides an email spamming feature, and they also offer a free SSL certificate with their basic plans, which is very important for you to own an online store.
The Control panel provides easy access to edit the .htaccess files to control access to the site or set up a password to protect your website.
It is shocking to see that they don’t provide anti-malware protection. It is surprising because hosting services at a much lower rate provides this protection mechanism.
Types Of Hosting Services Provided DreamHost
DreamHost provides a wide range of hosting packages that you can think about. They mainly offer five kinds of hosting services (Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting, Dedicated Hosting, Cloud Hosting, and Managed WordPress Hosting) to its users, and they are
1: Shared Hosting Service
Shared hosting is where many websites like yours share a common server between them. If you own a small business and don’t want to spend a lot of money, shared hosting will be the best option.
DreamHost provides unlimited bandwidth and unlimited SSD storage with every single shared hosting plan.
Their basic shared plan starts from $2.59/month, and that’s pretty cheap considering all the other features you are getting with it.
Their unlimited shared hosting plan comes at $3.95/month, and this includes a lot more features and a free domain for a lifetime.
The shared hosting plan provided by DreamHost will be the best option for any small business or even any website with moderate traffic.
DreamHost Shared Hosting Plan
DreamHost Offers only two plans in their shared hosting with different tags based on feature and configuration. Here is the short overview of DreamHost Shared Hosting plans & pricing-
1. Shared Starter – This plan comes with a monthly, yearly, and three-year plan that you can choose as you need. This plan costs $4.95/mo, $2.95/mo with 12-month terms, and $2.59 when you buy a three-year plan. In this plan, you will get 50GB SSD disk space, and you are allowed to host a single website.
2. Shared Unlimited – This plan comes with a monthly, yearly, and three-year plan that you can choose as you need. This plan costs $8.95 monthly, $2.95/mo with 12-month terms, and $3.95 when you buy a three-year plan. In this plan, you will get unlimited SSD disk space, and you are allowed to host unlimited websites.
Apart from that, both plans have the following benefits-
- Free Domain with One or More Years Terms
- Unmetered Visitors Per Month
- SSD Disk Space
- FREE SSL Certificate
- FREE WordPress Site Migration
- Free Domain Name Registration with Annual Plan
- Automated Daily Backups
- Free Domain Privacy
- Custom cPanel with SFTP, Shell Access, WP-CLI, etc.
- Quality Support Via Tickets, Phone, Live Chat
- 97 Days Money Back Guarantee
2: Dedicated Managed WordPress Hosting
DreamHost offers dedicated WordPress hosting plans that are fully managed by an experienced team of executives from DreamHost.
Their executives will install WordPress for you, and everything else will be taken care of by their executives.
It is a pretty great deal because WordPress powers almost 30% of the entire internet. So, if you own a WordPress website, then you should definitely consider this hosting service.
DreamHost Managed WordPress Hosting comes with three types of plans with different price tags based on WordPress-Specific features and configuration. Apart from that, DreamHost offers WordPress VPS plans that you can purchase as per your requirements.
DreamHost WordPress Hosting Plan
Here is the breakdown of the plans for DreamHost WordPress Hosting
1. DreamPress – This is the entry-level WordPress plan which costs $12/month. In this plan, you will get 30GB SSD Disk Space and ~100k monthly visitors.
2. DreamPress Plus – This is the second WordPress plan which costs $24/month. In this plan, you will get 60GB SSD Disk Space and ~300k monthly visitors.
3. DreamPress Pro – This is the third WordPress plan which costs $79/month. In this plan, you will get 120GB SSD Disk Space and ~1M monthly visitors.
Apart from that all plans also include the following
- Unmetered Visitor Per Month
- Unmetered Bandwidth
- One-Click Staging
- Built-in Caching
- Automatic Updates
- Automated WordPress Migration
- WP Website Builder
- Automated Backups
- Daily +On-Demand Backups
- Jetpack Plugin
- FREE Domain Registration with Annual Plan
- Unlimited CDN
- FREE SSL Certificate
- Domain Privacy
- Email Accounts @ Your Domain Name
- 97 Days Money-Back Guarantee
Read Also – Kinsta Hosting Review | HostArmada Review
3: VPS Hosting Service
For VPS hosting, your website will reside on a server with a few websites. VPS hosting is almost 3x times faster than shared hosting and will be a perfect choice for those who need more power for their websites.
With VPS hosting, you can feel the extra power provided by the server and handle a good amount of traffic.
DreamHost offers 4 Linux-based VPS hosting plans, and the cheapest one starts from $10/month.
Their VPS plans offer unlimited data transfers and domains. However, there are some limitations on the memory and storage end.
The basic VPS Hosting plan offers 1GB of RAM and 30 GB of SSD storage. On the other hand, the highest plan provides 8 GB of ram and 240 GB of storage.
Unfortunately, DreamHost only provides VPS hosting for Linux-based systems, and there is no windows support.
DreamHost VPS Hosting Plans
DreamHost offers four types of VPS hosting plans, and where are they-
1. VPS Basic – This is the entry-level VPS hosting plan which costs $10/month. In this plan, you will get 30GB SSD disk space, and 1GB RAM, and you are allowed to host unlimited websites.
2. VPS Business – This is the second VPS hosting plan which costs $20/month. In this plan, you will get 60GB SSD disk space, and 2GB RAM, and you are allowed to host unlimited websites.
3. VPS Professional – This is the third VPS hosting plan which costs $40/month. In this plan, you will get 120GB SSD disk space, and 4GB RAM, and you are allowed to host unlimited websites.
4. VPS Enterprise – This is the third VPS hosting plan which costs $80/month. In this plan, you will get 240GB SSD disk space, and 8GB RAM, and you are allowed to host unlimited websites.
All these plans also include the following
- Unlimited Traffic
- FREE SSL Certificate
- Unlimited Email Accounts
- Automatic Software Update
- VPS Control Panel
- Scalable RAM
- Automated Backups
- 100% Uptime Guarantee
- Quality Support
- And Some Advanced features
4: Dedicated Hosting Service
If you want your website to reside on a server all by itself and enjoy the maximum power of hosting, then you need to opt for dedicated server plans.
If your business is gaining a lot of attention and expecting an enormous amount of traffic on your website, you must upgrade to the dedicated hosting plan.
DreamHost offers two kinds of dedicated hosting plans; the first one starts at $149/month. It includes 4 GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage.
Their top dedicated hosting plans come at a price tag of $279/Month. It offers 16 GB of RAM and 2TB of SSD Disk storage.
Unfortunately, DreamHost doesn’t provide any windows based dedicated plans; it is also Linux-based. If you want to build a website on the foundation of the Windows operating system, then DreamHost is not the right option for you.
DreamHost Dedicated Hosting Plans
DreamHost offers two types of dedicated hosting plans, and where are they-
1. Standard – This plan starts at $169/month, including Intel Xeon 4Core-8Thread CPU, 4GB RAM, and 1TB HDD (No SSD). The RAM(8/16GB) of this plan is upgradeable so you can purchase by paying more.
2. Enhanced – This plan starts at $299/month, including Intel Xeon 12Core-24Thread CPU, 16GB RAM, and 2TB HDD (Available 240GB SSD). The RAM (32/64GB) of this plan is upgradeable and you can purchase it by paying more.
Apart from that, both plans also include the following
- RAID1 Storage
- Full Root Access (SSH)
- Local MySQL Database Server
- DDoS Protection
- 100% Uptime Guarantee
- Uncapped Bandwidth
- Ubuntu Linux
- Ruby Version Manager
- 24×7 Tech Support & Server Monitoring
- And Much More
5: Cloud Hosting Service
Cloud hosting plans are the second-best hosting service that you can get after shared hosting. In cloud hosting, multiple servers are working together.
In simple words, the resources needed for your website are spread among many servers. It will help you increase the server power whenever you need it.
It is a scalable hosting service that you can customize according to your needs.
The dreamHost cloud hosting package is starting at a very affordable price that costs $4.50/month, and it includes 512 MB of RAM, 80 GB of SSD server space, and unlimited bandwidth.
Unlike every other plan that we have seen till now, it is billed at a fixed monthly rate.
The cloud hosting option isn’t billed at a fixed monthly rate. Instead, they have a maximum amount that you will get billed per month depending upon the server that you are choosing.
You will only get charged for what you have used. It’s pretty cool that other service providers don’t offer it.
Other Premium Paid Services
Apart from hosting services, DreamHost offers many pro services to increase your business growth instantly.
Everything you will get on DreamHost, whether it is custom website design or SEO service, to better search ranking.
Overall, DreamHost provides everything you need to succeed online, and their pro services pricing are –
- Custom Web Design – $1499
- SEO Marketing – $399
- Social Media Marketing – $399
- Website Management Start from $59/month
These services are also divided into many sections as per the website need that you check on the pro services page.
So why are you waiting for me? Try DreamHost pro services and scale your business with ease.
Frequently Asked Question – DreamHost Hosting Review
Who is DreamHost?
DreamHost is a hosting service provider owned by New Dream Network, LLC, and founded in 1997. So DreamHost stands out for over 20+ years in the industry and gained so much popularity. Now they have a 1.5M website hosted on their server and 40000 happy customers across the world.
Is DreamHost a Good Website Host?
Yes! DreamHost offers tons of powerful features and services to grow your business with reliable and quality support. Apart from that, you can use their services 97 Risk-Free as they refund your total amount if you are not satisfied with their services.
Which is Better BlueHost or DreamHost?
Both hosting providers are the best for your needs. BlueHost is beginners friendly and recommended by WordPress itself, whereas DreamHost offers more advanced features and functionality in the same price segment. If you want better performance, then you must try DreamHost.
Is WordPress Free with DreamHost?
WordPress is the most used open-source CMS and is available for free of cost, but you need a domain and hosting to start. Like others, DreamHost also offers WordPress hosting and one-click WordPress installation in each hosting plan. They also provide Free site migration for WordPress websites.
Does DreamHost offer cPanel?
DreamHost doesn’t use cPanel because they have their own custom-built easy-to-use control panel to manage all your website data and tasks. The best part is that the DreamHost panel uses a separate server to take any resources from your server.
How Do I Cancel My DreamHost Account?
If you don’t want to use the DreamHost service in the future, you can cancel your account. You need to follow these steps: Go to DreamHost Dashboard – Billing – Manage Account – Click to Close Account red button.
How Do I Use WordPress on DreamHost?
First of all, you need to purchase any hosting; after that, log in to your DreamHost dashboard and search for One-Click Installer. Click on it and follow the instructions to install WordPress successfully.
Recommended Read – FastComet Review | Scala Hosting Review
Conclusion
So, do we recommend DreamHost? The simple answer to this question is yes; you can obviously go for this hosting service provider.
They offer great value for money, and their unlimited bandwidth, storage options, and 97-day money-back guarantee make it really attractive at this price point.
They also offer a ton of features even with their basic plans. So yeah, you can choose DreamHost as your hosting service.