DreamHost Review 2024

Edited by Michael Levanduski

Updated


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DreamHost is one of the oldest and most reliable hosting services. Offering top-class hosting packages at bargain prices, it’s a hosting company you can count on.

Who should choose DreamHost? DreamHost is an excellent choice for everyone: from small businesses and entrepreneurs to large e-commerce websites. It also has hosting plans that fit personal websites, too.

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Hostinger

The easiest option

Starts at $2.49 per month

  • Fail-proof setup
  • Great for beginners
  • Free AI tools

Bluehost

For new WordPress sites

Starts at $2.95 per month

  • Guided onboarding
  • Recommended by WordPress
  • 24/7 support

HostGator

Best security and scalability

Starts at $3.75 per month

  • All types of hosting
  • Enhanced security tools
  • Affordable as you grow

What we like about DreamHost

  • Hugely popular: DreamHost supports over 1.5 million sites and 750,000 WordPress installations. Its reliability makes it a great choice if you’re a novice in web hosting.
  • Multiple hosting options: DreamHost offers many hosting options, including shared hosting, VPS hosting, cloud hosting, and dedicated servers. You can choose an option as per your business requirements. The VPS WordPress option has been particularly helpful for me.
  • Ease of use: I love how easy it is to use DreamHost’s features and services. Its custom control panel makes signing up and using my plan of choice effortless. Moreover, DreamHost’s one-click installation simplifies the process of signing up for WordPress. DreamHost also has a website builder, which makes it easy to develop a website with just a few clicks.
  • Excellent privacy: DreamHost takes privacy very seriously. Features include an anti-spam policy and free WHOIS privacy.
  • Digital security features: DreamHost provides robust digital security tools, including SSL. Along with daily data backups, it also allows the implementation of web application firewalls.
  • A 97-day money-back guarantee: If you aren’t satisfied with DreamHost’s services, you can get a “no questions asked” refund. While shared hosting customers can cancel within the first 97 days, DreamPress customers must cancel within the first 30 days.
  • 100% uptime guarantee: DreamHost offers reliable performance and its systems are up and running efficiently all the time. This guarantee is backed up by compensation of one day’s fees for every hour of downtime.
  • Month-to-month pricing: I love that DreamHost’s monthly plans allow me to choose per my requirements and pay a monthly fee. In case I don’t think a certain plan meets my needs, I can change it without worrying about the cost. DreamHost’s monthly packages provide flexibility to customers.
  • Award-winning support: DreamHost’s tech support is one of the best. Quick and efficient tech support is a necessity when it comes to web hosting services. DreamHost has many support options, including live chat, ticket system, knowledge base, active forum, and callbacks.
  • Eco-hosting: If your aim is to limit your company’s carbon footprint, DreamHost is a good choice. DreamHost’s grids are powered by electricity from renewable sources. Additionally, DreamHost’s data centers use energy-efficient cooling infrastructure.

What fell flat

  • Extra costs for certain features: All features are not covered in DreamHost’s packages. I dislike that I have to pay extra for certain features within the dashboard. Having to make consistent purchases or upgrade to another pack isn’t ideal.
  • Intricate control panel: While DreamHost has easy-to-use features, the control panel and interface can take some getting used to.
  • You may pay for some levels of support: While the support team at DreamHost is excellent, you do need to note that premium support may cost you extra. If you need a phone call returned from a tech expert, for example, you’ll have to pay for it.
  • Data centers only in the U.S.: With data centers being located only in the U.S., load time can be slower for customers in other countries, and server speeds can be less than ideal.

Digital.com’s Editorial Review

While DreamHost offers some of the best features in the web hosting market, such as one-click installation, unlimited data storage, and bandwidth, unlimited sites, and a 100% uptime guarantee, it does have a lot of upcharges and premium features that you have to pay extra for.

DreamHost has a good reputation in the hosting space because of its ease of use, pricing options, and customization. DreamHost’s shared hosting plan includes the most popular apps, including WordPress, Weebly, and Wix, making them a go-to for DIY site-builders; they also offer a 97-day money-back guarantee for service testing, so giving them a try doesn’t hurt the wallet. – Kristina Knight, Biz Report

See how we review web hosting providers.

Plans & Pricing

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  • Shared hosting–$2.59 per month
  • WordPress builder–$2.59 per month
  • Cloud computing–$4.50 per month
  • VPS hosting–$10 per month
  • Managed WordPress–$11.99 per month
  • Dedicated servers–$169 per month

Features

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  • Custom control panel
  • Award-winning support
  • 1-click app installer
  • SSD storage space
  • Free domain for the first year
  • Pre-installed WordPress

Performance & Uptime

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  • 100% uptime guarantee
  • Average response time: 1.57s

Security

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  • Free SSL certificate
  • Complimentary domain privacy
  • Malware remover
  • Built-in firewall
  • Support for HTTP/2

Support

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DreamHost’s team of experts provides robust technical support and can resolve any issues you face. However, the methods of customer support are limited unless you’re paying a fee.

  • Live chat
  • Email
  • Ticketing
  • Knowledge base
  • Scheduled callbacks (not free)

Improvements

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DreamHost continuously works on updates and upgrades on all the services it offers. Recent updates include better site management, improved email performance, new tutorials, and additional support staff.

DreamHost Plans and Pricing

DreamHost offers a full gamut of hosting options to suit just about every type of website, from brand new business sites to massive online stores. Those plans include:

Shared hosting starting at $2.59 per month

  • Good for: brand new websites, beginners, personal blogs

A WordPress website builder starting at $2.59 per month

  • Good for: New WordPress users, beginners, small blogs
  • Identical to shared hosting with a free WordPress website builder

Cloud computing starting at $4.50 per month

  • Good for: experts looking for fully customizable, yet affordable hosting
  • Bare bones cloud environment with full server control

VPS hosting starting at $10 per month

  • Good for: Sites that have outgrown shared hosting, hosting multiple sites
  • Fully managed environment with improved resources and performance

Managed WordPress starting at $11.99 per month

  • Good for: Established WordPress websites, WooCommerce stores
  • DreamHost handles all server and WordPress management for you
  • Offers a boost in performance and resources over shared hosting

Dedicated servers starting at $169 per month

  • Good for: Businesses with IT support, high security situations
  • Get an entire server to yourself with complete flexibility
  • Overkill for 99.99% of websites

With each type of hosting, there are multiple plans to choose from, depending on what you need. Check out all of DreamHost’s plans, here.

DreamHost's various products and starting prices. WordPress hosting starts at $2.59 per month, Shared starts at $2.59 per month, Dedicated starts at $169 per month, Cloud starts at $0.0075 per hour, VPS starts at $10 per month, and the website builder starts at $2.59 per month

Features

DreamHost provides its customers with top-of-the-line hosting plans at bargain prices.

Regardless of the hosting plan you choose from DreamHost, you will get access to excellent features, including pre-installed WordPress and a free domain for one year. 

Custom control panel

DreamHost’s packages come with a custom, easy-to-use control panel. The layout and options in the cPanel make using DreamHost’s services more effortless. Through the control panel, you can get admin access to everything you require to run your website.

What Is the DreamHost Control Panel For?
The control panel allows you to manage everything with regards to your website’s hosting and accounts, including websites, domain, WordPress, email, account, payment/billing, support, and more.

DreamHost's custom control panel

Award-winning support

With DreamHost, you’ll have a smooth time building and managing your website, even if you’re a newbie. With a robust team of tech veterans to answer your questions and resolve your issues, DreamHost can support you however and whenever you need.

DreamHost’s in-house support team is available 24/7.

Creating a ticket with DreamHost customer support

One-click installer

DreamHost allows you to make attractive websites, even if you don’t know any programming. With pre-assembled apps available in DreamHost’s packages, you can create a website from scratch in just a few clicks.

100% uptime guarantee

All of DreamHost’s hosting packages provide 100% uptime with data center locations, redundant cooling, emergency generators, and consistent monitoring. Your hosting website will be available to serve traffic all the time. DreamHost guarantees 100% uptime and offers compensation for every hour of downtime.

Solid state drives (SSDs)

DreamHost provides its customers with many technologies to improve speed and response time. With the SSDs DreamHost offers, your website, caching, and database queries can run 200% faster than HDDs.

Free SSL certificate

All hosting packages at DreamHost offer a free SSL certificate that will protect your site with HTTPS by encrypting traffic and instantly boosting SEO with Google.

Additionally, DreamHost provides other privacy features that will mask and safeguard your personal information at no extra cost.

Free domain

With DreamHost, you can claim a unique, easy-to-remember address for your site. The domain name feature comes free for one year with all of DreamHost’s hosting packages.

Pre-installed WordPress

You can use DreamHost’s one-click WordPress installer to set your WordPress site up instantly. No matter the size of your business, you can easily create and manage all kinds of websites on WordPress.

Performance and Uptime

DreamHost claims that it has a 100% uptime guarantee, ensuring that websites load quickly and remain stable at all times. My tests showed that DreamHost was not able to meet that commitment.

Uptime and reliability

I ran several tests to check DreamHost’s uptime and reliability. According to my results, DreamHost servers had an average uptime of 99.8%over the past year. DreamHost’s all-time uptime is 99.76%, less than its competitors.

Uptime report over a span of six months for a website we built on DreamHost. Shows an uptime of 99.76% with 81 outages and over 10 hours of downtime.

Site response times

DreamHost’s servers offer impressive site response times. I tested the site multiple times and got an average response time of 1.57s. If you use DreamHost to run your site, it’ll load quickly.

However, this is just the speed at which DreamHost’s servers respond to a web request. Your actual site’s load time will be influenced by how you build your site. With DreamHost’s cloud computing hosting packages, you can further enhance your site response times.

Security

It’s DreamHost’s priority to provide its customers’ websites, servers, and data with the best security possible including free SSL certificates, a malware remover, free domain privacy, and a firewall.

SSL certificates

All of DreamHost’s packages have a free SSL certificate that authenticates a website’s identity and authorizes an encrypted connection.

SSL is an encrypted link between a web server and a web browser that’s created and followed when sharing information. It ensures that the data being transferred is not intercepted by unauthorized parties.

How SSL certificates work
SSL certificates are small data files installed on website pages (login screens, payment pages, or online forms) that require users to submit sensitive information, such as name, credit card information, or passwords.

SSL certificates can also be installed on web servers, enabling a more secure HTTPS protocol and, therefore, a secure connection.

Essentially, SSL certificates serve one purpose: to bind together an identifier (domain name, server name, or hostname) and the identity of an organization. This proves the originator or the recipient of the files is who they say they are.

Other security services

Other than an SSL certificate, DreamHost provides its customers’ sites with the following security services:

  • Malware remover: A tool to discover and fix malware on websites
  • Free domain privacy: Protects customers’ data in the WHOIS records
  • Mod_security: A web application firewall for apache that helps safeguard websites from various attacks
  • HTTP/2: A standard security protocol that’s encrypted by default
  • Lua-resty-waf: A high-performance, reverse proxy web application firewall (WAF) built that enhances security by redirecting all client requests to a protected backend server.

Support

While DreamHost offers technical support 24/7 year-round, you can’t call the support team on a high-priority basis. You can, however, schedule a callback for a fee. You can also contact the support team via email, open a ticket, or live chat, so you won’t have trouble getting the help you need. No matter how you contact the support team, you will get premium quality help.

DreamHost also has an extensive knowledge base and an active forum where you can find useful information.

Recent Improvements

The following are a few recent improvements rolled out by DreamHost:

  • Better website management: Many changes were made to the websites section of DreamHost, including a new tech stack, the ability to change domains, WordPress Migrations feature, and DNS Propagation Check to check DNS status. DreamHost also revamped its user interface and redesigned the control panel. These improvements enabled customers to manage getting started with their first website easily.
  • DreamHost in Spanish: In 2020, DreamHost translated its entire website, customer control panel, and other features into Spanish.
  • Improved email performance: DreamHost prioritized email performance and upgraded its systems to improve speed and reliability.
  • Upgraded web servers: DreamHost’s upgraded web servers keep customer data safe with the least possible disruption. It also added the latest version of PHP to help enhance site performance.
  • New tutorials to help you succeed: The company launched DreamHost Academy, a tutorial set covering all the details about web hosting and development. It includes everything from foundational concepts to navigating advanced features and optimizing a website.
  • Pro services to shrink your to-do list: DreamHost’s Pro Services allows its customers to complete a range of high-level tasks easily. This includes setting up storefronts, fixing a hacked site, helping with marketing, and more.
  • Additional support staff: DreamHost enhanced its customer support services by adding tech experts to its support staff.

When it comes to web hosting, using state-of-the-art technologies is essential. DreamHost ensures that it provides its users with the updates and upgrades they need.

Compare DreamHost Alternatives

While DreamHost offers top-of-the-line web hosting services, you can look at alternatives to gauge which one best fits your requirements. We’ve used, researched, and analyzed dozens of hosting providers–you can see all of our top web hosting picks or compare DreamHost’s closest competitors below.

Hosting Provider

Pricing + Basic Plan Features

Starts at: $2.59 per month

  • 1 website
  • SSD storage
  • Unlimited traffic
  • Free domain for 1 year
  • Free SSL certificate

Starts at $2.95 per month

  • 1 website
  • 50 GB SSD storage
  • Custom themes
  • Free domain for 1 year
  • Free SSL certificate

Consider Bluehost if: You want a one-stop-shop service for small businesses

Starts at $2.99 per month

  • 1 website
  • 10GB storage
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Free email

Consider SiteGround if: You’re interested in using WooCommerce.

Starts at $2.29 per month

  • 2 websites
  • 100 GB SSD storage
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • 10 free email addresses
  • Free SSL certificate

Consider InMotion if: Comprehensive customer service is a priority for you.

What You Need to Know

How many websites can you host on DreamHost?

All of DreamHost’s plans except the Shared Starter hosting package allow you to host an unlimited number of websites.

Is DreamHost good for WordPress hosting?

Yes, DreamHost is good for WordPress Hosting. It officially partners with WordPress by offering a Managed WordPress hosting package with three plans.

Does DreamHost use cPanel?

No, DreamHost uses it’s own custom control panel.

Does my DreamHost plan include email hosting?

All of DreamHost’s web hosting plans, except for Shared Starter, DreamCompute, and DreamObjects, offer email hosting.

Is it possible to sign up for DreamHost without a credit card?

Yes, you can sign up for DreamHost without a credit card. DreamHost offers a variety of other payment options, including debit cards (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover), ACH, PayPal, and electronic checks.

How We Reviewed DreamHost

I test web hosts based on the following factors:

  • Plan value: What plans are available, and do they offer a good value?
  • Ease of use: Is the dashboard easy to navigate?
  • Support: How fast can you get help when needed, and is support genuinely helpful?
  • Features: What features does the host offer, and how do they compare to similar competitors?
  • Security: Does the host offer SSL certificates, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack protection, backup services, and scans for viruses and malware?
  • Speed and uptime: Does the provider offer a fast, stable environment for your website? How does it perform in tests, and what kind of servers does the hosting company use?
  • Recent improvements: What has the host done lately to update its technology and services?

Learn more about our review methodology.

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