DreamHost

DreamHost should be one of the first places you look if you want to build a Linux-powered website. The web hosting service has a robust feature set that meets a wide range of personal and business web hosting requirements by providing shared, WordPress, virtual private server (VPS), cloud, and dedicated plans. Furthermore, its website-building software provides webmasters with simple tools for creating attractive, flexible sites. 

Plans and Pricing

Dreamhost provides shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud, and WordPress hosting plans (managed and unmanaged). They also provide email hosting, a website builder, and a one-of-a-kind suite of professional services such as web design, marketing, and management.

Dreamhost offers a remarkable 97-day money back guarantee on the majority of their plans – enough time to decide if you like their services and the option to cancel at any time.

When you do decide to go with Dreamhost, you can pay with a credit card, a debit card, or PayPal.

Shared Hosting

Dreamhost’s unlimited shared plan is the most recommended because it includes everything from the’starter’ plan as well as unlimited websites to host and unlimited storage… all for the same price.

Advice: Dreamhost’s shared hosting plans are ideal for low-traffic websites, such as new or entry-level sites. They provide the most resources on a limited budget. Please keep in mind that the prices listed are for Dreamhost’s 1-year plans.

VPS Hosting

If you’re just getting started with VPS hosting, I’d recommend Dreamhost’s VPS business plans. At $27.50 per month, you get 60 GB of SSD storage and unmetered bandwidth.

Advice: Dreamhost’s VPS plans are ideal for businesses that have fluctuating server demand and experience traffic spikes. These VPS plans enable you to quickly increase or decrease the amount of resources you require.

Dedicated Hosting

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

Dreamhost has three pricing tiers for its standard and enhanced dedicated plans, which are 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

Advice: Dreamhost’s dedicated hosting plans are ideal for businesses with high traffic and thus high data demand. Businesses that deal with sensitive data, such as customer payment methods, etc.

WordPress Hosting

WordPress Basic

Dreamhost’s entry-level and most affordable WordPress plans. I’d go with the enhanced plan, which gives you unmetered storage and bandwidth for the same price as the basic.

Advice: Entry-level WordPress plans are ideal for new websites or domains with low traffic.

DreamPress

DreamPress is a fully managed WordPress platform that provides you with additional resources and everything you need to run a successful WordPress website. Backups, support, free migration, and so on.

Advice: Dreamhost’s managed WordPress plans, DreamPress, are fully managed services that handle the heavy lifting of setting up and maintaining your website for you.

VPS WordPress

Dreamhost’s VPS WordPress plans include VPS-powered WordPress hosting for greater scalability, control, and resources.

Advice: This option is best for businesses with multiple WordPress websites or individuals who want complete control over their WordPress resources.

Features

Features

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

Dreamhost has some unique features, but the most notable is its customized control panel – Dreamhost does not offer cPanel, but rather a custom-built control panel for user convenience.

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

Performance

If you’re thinking about hosting your website with Dreamhost, you should know how well your website will perform as a result of how the host’s servers perform.

The host’s server response time, uptime, and fully loaded time are all important performance metrics to monitor.

When a user visits your website, the faster the host’s servers respond, the faster your web pages will load and be available to the user. This will result in longer engagement times, lower bounce rates, and increased conversions for you.

Google recommends a fully loaded time of 1-2 seconds as a standard. Dreamhost guarantees 99.9% uptime, which has become the industry standard.

I used GTMetrix to measure the server performance of DreamHost hosted website, and got the following results:

The server response time was around 250 ms on average, with a fully loaded time of 2.1s. The host also had an outstanding overall performance of 99%:

Customer Support

DreamHost provides email, ticket, and online chat support. It also has a large knowledge database. Unfortunately, DreamHost does not provide phone support, which is unfortunate because sometimes you just want to talk to a real person. Having said that, the chat support is quite good. We gave it a shot on a weekday afternoon and evening. We waited less than a minute in both cases before someone answered my questions.

We inquired about the distinctions between VPS and dedicated hosting. The representative provided me with a thorough and satisfying response. We also inquired about importing my WordPress.com setup into DreamHost and were given a very helpful link with step-by-step instructions. Again, we were pleased with the responses. DreamHost also provides a Knowledgebase with answers to many frequently asked questions.

DreamHost’s shared hosting comes with an excellent 97-day money-back guarantee. The credit policy, however, differs for VPS and dedicated server plans. If you cancel an annual VPS plan within the first 30 days, you will be credited for any unused balance. The same is true for annual dedicated plans. DreamHost does not offer refunds for monthly VPS and dedicated plans.

Conclusion

DreamHost is a top pick for cloud-based web hosting services due to its extensive tools, which include useful website-building software, security options, a generous shared hosting money-back guarantee, and unlimited storage, monthly data transfers, domains, and email. However, if you’re a corporate client looking for world-class cloud hosting, 1&1 Ionos is the way to go.