How Does This LA-based Web Hosting Company Stand Out From the Competition?
Introduction
This LA-based hosting company is owned by New Dream Network, LLC. It was founded in 1996, and began hosting customer’s sites in 1997.
Dreamhost employs about 200 employees and has close to 400,000 customers.
We have never hosted a website with Dreamhost before. So we were excited to try them out. See how they compare with the competition. In this review, I will be relying on the data that we have captured in our performance testing, as well as our interaction with their customer support.
Dreamhost makes it easy to get a new website started because they include a free domain name for the first year, as well as free site builder tools, and a decent 1-click WordPress installation.
All plans come with 24/7 Live Support, a free SSL certificate, and unmetered traffic. For a little more money per month you can get unlimited file storage, free backups, and added security.
Their shared hosting starts at $2.59 a month.They do have a long than normal 97 refund policy, which is a plus. The shared hosting also comes with a free Domain name.
You can choose between a one year or a three year term for the plan. Unfortunately, you have to pay for email on their starter-shared hosting plan, on their unlimited-shared hosting plan it is free.
Their performance is better than average based on our test beacon:
Uptime – 99.96%
Response Time – 916 ms
WordPress Render Time – 182 milliseconds
Quick Overview
July 2019 Thru July 2021
| Average Page Speed | 916 ms |
| Average Uptime | 99.96% 180 minutes over 19 outages |
| Average Render Time | 180 ms |
| Average Security Threats | 39 attempts |
| Support | Chat,Ticket & Callback |
| Apps | WordPress, Blogger, Drupal, Shopify, Wix, and more |
| Features | Unmetered bandwidth, free SSL, free domain (for the first year, SSD storage |
| Plans | Shared, Cloud, WordPress, VPS, and Dedicated Servers |
| Transfer | Not free |
| Pricing | Starting at $2.59/mo (same renewal price) |
Three Main Considerations
Speed and Reliability
Most website owners are losing money if their website is down or people leave because it is slow. At a bare minimum a web hosting provider should be able to provide 99.95% uptime and load pages in less than 1 second.
DreamHost has an uptime guarantee. Like other web hosts, if your month-to-month average falls under the threshold of the guarantee, you’ll get a refund in the form of a credit for the cost of the service.
Most uptime we’ve seen usually hovers around the 99.90% mark. So Dreamhost believes in and stands behind their service, but they’re also giving themselves a little wiggle room in case ordinary fluctuations hit.
DreamHost, though, ensures 100% uptime in their Terms of Service. Keep
in mind that scheduled upkeep or user blunders aren’t protected in this guarantee.
However, any other DreamHost problem that messes with your site, database, email, or web-mail can trigger the guarantee. You’ll get a free day’s really worth of provider for each hour of service interruption.
The only trap is that there’s a 10% max of your “next prepaid internet hosting renewal fee” (so it applies in the future, as opposed to a retroactive discount or refund).
We are performing a running monthly test of Dreamhost’s speed and reliability with a simple WordPress website as a testing beacon. Here is a link to that site:
http://dh-openhostingreviews.com/
Dreamhost has been able to beat our expectations for uptime and speed. They are also beating out most of the competition. Below you will find a breakdown of their performance by month:
July 2019 average uptime: 99.71% average load speed: 848 ms
Aug 2019 average uptime: 99.96% average load speed: 528 ms
Sep 2019 average uptime: 100.00% average load speed: 518 ms
Oct 2019 average uptime: 99.93% average load speed: 518 ms
Nov 2019 average uptime: 99.99% average load speed: 565 ms
Dec 2019 average uptime: 99.99% average load speed: 544 ms
Jan 2020 average uptime: 99.99% average load speed: 553 ms
Feb 2020 average uptime: 99.98% average load speed: 1,667 ms
Mar 2020 average uptime: 99.98% average load speed: 1,717 ms
April 2020 average uptime: 99.99% average load speed: 1,694 ms
May 2020 average uptime: 99.98% average load speed: 1,622 ms
June 2020 average uptime: 99.99% average load speed: 1,839 ms
July 2020 average uptime: 99.96% average load speed: 763 ms
Aug 2020 average uptime: 99.96% average load speed: 761 ms
Sep 2020 average uptime: 99.86% average load speed: 788 ms
Oct 2020 average uptime: 99.99% average load speed: 628 ms
Nov 2020 average uptime: 100.00% average load speed: 672 ms
Dec 2020 average uptime: 99.99% average load speed: 698 ms
Jan 2021 average uptime: 99.98% average load speed: 786 ms
Feb 2021 average uptime: 99.98% average load speed: 833 ms
Mar 2021 average uptime: 99.95% average load speed: 902 ms
April 2021 average uptime: 99.99% average load speed: 1,009 ms
May 2021 average uptime: 99.99% average load speed: 756 ms
June 2021 average uptime: 99.98% average load speed: 815 ms
July 2021 average uptime: 100.00% average load speed: 681 ms
Quality of Support
Dreamhost has a straightforward chat system. They allow you to browse their knowledge base and forums while you wait for an agent.
One of the fastest ways to judge the knowledge of the help staff, is to ask a simple question most tech agents should know right away:
What version of MySQL is my website running on?”
Below is a screenshot of my chat session with a support agent:
The chat session was very quick. It connected to agent Andrew M. in less than a minute. They did not verify the account, I’m not sure if it’s because I did not ask an questions that would raise a red flag.
The agent was prompt in letting me know that I was running MySQL 5.7. They were very polite, overall it was a positive experience.
Affordability
Dreamhost is one of the lower priced web hosting companies out there. To get started is only $2.59 per month for their basic package for a single website.
This is a great bargain when you consider their uptime/speed, the features included in their packages, the free tools and easy-to-use management tool, and their free domain.
Just remember that these prices are the monthly price if you purchase 3 years of service upfront. Prices are a little higher if you buy 12 months in advance.
There is a month-to-month plan, called the Monthly Plan, that starts at $4.95. This option is without commitments or contracts.
Keep in mind these prices are promotional introductory offers and the do offer a 97 day money-back guarantee on all purchases.
Here is a copy of my receipt for their Starter Plan for 18 months of service:
Available Plans, Pricing, and Details
Starter Plan
The Starter Plan from Dreamhost starts at $2.59/month. Note the $2.59 is for a 3 years plan, for a 1 year plan it’s $3.95. This comes with hosting for one website. This is a great deal, considering all the freebies you get with signing up, including a free domain.
Unlimited Plan
The Unlimited Plan for 3 years is $5.95 a month, and for 1 year it’s $6.95. This is the highest option they have. The features include unlimited websites, and unlimited email addresses. This is a steal for what is included in the package.
Plan Feature Comparison
Plan Features
- Includes Domain: Yes, free for as long as you are signed up
- Easy Setup Process: Easy one page registration form.
- Admin Dashboard Experience: Control panel is very clean and easy-to-use. Unfortunately it does not have cPanel.
- 3rd Party Application Support: One-click integration with Mojo Marketplace for easy installation of popular scripts like WordPress, Weebly, Joomla, Drupal, OpenCart, and more.
- Server Information: Linux CentOS 6, PHP 7, MySQL 5.7, PostgreSQL 10
- Payment Methods: Visa, MasterCard, Discover, Amex, and PayPal.
- Hidden Fees and Clauses: no hidden fees that we found.
- Upsells: Some Upsells. But it’s common in the web hosting industry, so don’t worry about it.
Other Plans
If you need additional features, Dreamhost also offers other web hosting types, including Managed WordPress, Virtual Private Server (VPS), Cloud, and Dedicated Servers.
Do we recommend Dreamhost?
Yes, we recommend Dreamhost as a hosting provider. If you are starting out this is a good one to use.
Dreamhost has consistently been near the top for speed and uptime in all our reports.
Plus, they have a great administration panel to manage your account and website. Their security and support is on-point and reliable. We like their money-back guarantee and they have some of the lowest prices out there. Their 97 day period for a refund is a plus.
DreamHost doesn’t have any hidden terms or hoops to leap thru that would possibly jeopardize your refund, either. There are only a few cases your refund would possibly be deducted or no longer given, but most are very standard.
The first exception is that only credit cards will be refunded. So other price methods like checks, or money orders won’t be refunded.
The second exception is that extra services and that were purchased thru another party won’t be refunded, either. That consists of things like domain names, SSL certificates, AdWords credits, and comparable extras.
There are, however, some things we don’t like that are important to keep in mind. It is pretty annoying that they have a fee for site migrations.
Most other hosting companies offer this for free and you would think they would too to get new customers. It’s a large fee, $99.00 to be exact for each site migrated.
Despite some of their drawbacks, they offer a great experience and value.
Visit Dreamhost.com