DreamHost Review : Pros, Cons & Comparisons of DreamHost WordPress Web Hosting (2024 Updated)

DreamHost is perhaps one of the oldest hosting companies out there, who are had the time to master the art of providing top-quality web hosting with plenty of perks, features, and plans.

DreamHost started as a project of some enthusiastic undergraduates of Harvey Mudd College of Claremont, California in 1996. These students were Dallas Bethune, Josh Jones, and Michael Rodriguez. One year later in 1997, The name DreamHost was conceived and registered and DreamHost came into being an officially recognized hosting company.

Before long DreamHost was being counted as one of the renowned and reliable hosting companies in the USA. It garnered fame especially for being non EIG hosting and a cheap-and-powerful-hosting providing company.

Not many hosts offer a 100% uptime guarantee, but DreamHost does. This means they have a lot of pressure on their shoulders to provide that consistently to their users. The service provides shared hosting, VPS, and dedicated plans that come with a 14 day free trial so you can explore what DreamHost has to offer before jumping straight in. Once you have accustomed yourself to the hosting dashboard you will find that there are plenty of unlimited features and tools but they do lack a telephone number.

A 97-day money-back guarantee will also provide you with a confidence boost in case you find that the service isn’t to your expectations.

Also, right now they have a promotion for a 50$ discount! A great deal.

DreamHost Shared Website Hosting Provider

DreamHost is the only WordPress shared hosting provider I’ve seen to offer unlimited storage, domains, email, and monthly data transfers even on its basic plans. This is a huge plus for more advanced website owners and helps get over the higher price of hosting.

Most other website hosting companies only provide some of these unlimited services on the higher-level packages and few offer unlimited domains or monthly data transfers at any price.

Once you sign up for a DreamHost hosting plan, the control panel is easy to use. There is no website builder which really wasn’t an issue for me since I have all my sites made in WordPress anyway.

DreamHost does offer a simple, one-click install for WordPress, making getting your site going fairly easy. Once in WordPress, you’ll simply install a theme and start working…or do what I do and just hire a cheap developer to get you started.

The hosting provider starts you off with some free WordPress themes and plugins as well as all the unlimited features mentioned above.

DreamHost customer service is managed through email, ticket-based support on the platform, and online chat. I have contacted them a couple of times and each time received great service which solved all the issues I had. I was able to get on chat support multiple times without waiting for more than a minute. The DreamHost customer rep was knowledgeable and able to guide me through several questions.

I asked another blogger that uses DreamHost to share her experience with the webhost’s reliability. She uses uptimerobot.com to automatically monitor her site every five minutes. It basically pings your site to make sure it’s working right.

She reported only one instance where the site was down over the last three months and then only for eight minutes late at night. It’s right up there with the best site reliability I’ve seen in other website hosting reviews.

Check the 50$ discount promotion currently offered!

DreamHost VPS and Dedicated Hosting

DreamHost offers Linux-based virtual private server plans (VPS) for larger websites and businesses that need more security or higher traffic. The packages start at $15 per month with 1GB of RAM, which is pretty nice. Also, you do get unlimited email, storage, and monthly data transfers and higher RAM is available for a little more per month.

Dedicated server plans start at $149 per month, a little more than other hosting providers but you get 1 TB of storage and unlimited data transfers. DreamHost doesn’t offer Windows-based dedicated servers which will be a non-issue for those familiar with Linux.

You get anti-spam software on DreamHost email but no malware protection. You will also need to set up your own SSL certificates for websites.

There are a few other security features you get with DreamHost but you will need some developer skills to manage them. It’s another reason why I only recommend DreamHost to more experienced website owners or those with help.

DreamHost Price Comparison

DreamHost doesn’t have a no-frills package for shared WordPress hosting with its cheapest plan starting at $10 per month (and that’s before the 50$ discount promotion!).

For that pricing, DreamHost offers extra features like multiple WordPress sites and domains as well as much larger storage compared to other hosting providers. For those that will use the extra services, it’s a good deal.

This pretty affordable deal combined with 1-click WordPress install makes it suitable for beginners as well.

What I Liked About DreamHost Website Hosting

DreamHost is a strong contender for experienced and amateur website owners that will be able to use its extra features on the hosting plans. Newbies will probably want to go with a more basic tier such as the shared hosting one around $10 per month (which stays consistent for the whole period – other hosting services usually bump the hosting price after your first year with them, a dirty trick that DreamHost avoids).

For those with larger websites or that don’t need a site-builder, you’ll like the quality you get from DreamHost’s managed hosting and some of the other features

DreamHost Cons

DreamHost is a hosting solution that will be exactly what is needed for many website owners, advanced and beginners alike. There are some great features in its hosting services that users of every expertise level could benefit from. DreamHost’s monthly price is fair compared to other shared hosting providers. Yet, there are still some cons that we must point out:

  • There aren’t servers based on Windows
  • Chat and email support

But, the lacking of Windows servers is, in my opinion, an advantage. Linux-based ones are much more reliable for web hosting.

As for phone support, I never needed it. The LiveChat support was ultra fast and helpful.

Oh, They’re Carbon Neutral (AKA Green)

Being a web host takes tons of resources. Just the amount of electricity it takes to run servers alone is tremendous.

That’s why DreamHost is committed to reducing its impact on the environment. One way that they do this is through the purchase of carbon offsets.

In fact, DreamHost has been a carbon-neutral company since 2007. In just 10 years, the company has neutralized a whopping 29,298.1 tons of greenhouse gases.

That’s huge! If you’re proactive about reducing your carbon footprint, DreamHost is a great web hosting option to consider.

What’s Good About Dreamhost

Let’s Summarize. What’s good about Dreamhost web hosting solution, should you go with it for your next website?

  • Great uptime (almost 99.9%).
  • Page loading times are 18% faster than competitors (~870ms).
  • High-quality, helpful, and fast customer support.
  • Generous 97-day money-back guarantee (most web hosting companies are willing to offer 30 days refund policy).
  • Bandwidth is truly unlimited.
  • They’re carbon neutral (AKA green).
  • A generous 2 weeks free trial during which the user can test and get used to the platform.

Alternatives to DreamHost

DreamHost makes an excellent choice among managed WordPress hosts and with its tiered plans, you won’t overpay for features you don’t need. But, given the vast WordPress hosting offerings, you may consider some other DreamHost alternatives.

Our alternative hosting favorites are SiteGround which is another great SSD based webhosting provider and WP Engine which offers quality and fast WordPress-only hosting for bigger companies and enterprises.

DreamHost Discount Coupon

Online Tools Expert users get a 50% discount and free SSL with our DreamHost coupon code.

All you have to do is click on the following link to purchase. The discount will be applied automatically to the pricing packages.

Start DreamHost hosting with a 50% off discount >>>

Johnny McKinsey
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6 thoughts on “DreamHost Review : Pros, Cons & Comparisons of DreamHost WordPress Web Hosting (2024 Updated)”

  1. Hi Johnny, thanks for such a great article. You have great reviews for hosting providers on your site, such as this one.

    Reply

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