AWS CloudFormation vs. DreamHost

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AWS CloudFormation
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
AWS CloudFormation gives developers and systems administrators a way to create and manage a collection of related AWS resources, provisioning and updating them in a predictable fashion. Use AWS CloudFormation’s sample templates or create templates to describe the AWS resources, and any associated dependencies or runtime parameters, required to run an application. Users don’t need to figure out the order for provisioning AWS services or the subtleties of making those dependencies work.…
$0
DreamHost
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
DreamHost is a website hosting service with features such as managed VPS hosting, public cloud computing, and dedicated servers. Managed options include WordPress with the DreamPress upgraded service with staging and coaching, WooCommerce hosting, as well as dedicated server hosting.
$3.95
per month
Pricing
AWS CloudFormationDreamHost
Editions & Modules
Free Tier - 1,000 Handler Operations per Month per Account
$0.00
Handler Operation
$0.0009
per handler operation
Shared
$3.95
per month
DreamPress
$16.95
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AWS CloudFormationDreamHost
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThere is no additional charge for using AWS CloudFormation with resource providers in the following namespaces: AWS::*, Alexa::*, and Custom::*. In this case you pay for AWS resources (such as Amazon EC2 instances, Elastic Load Balancing load balancers, etc.) created using AWS CloudFormation as if you created them manually. You only pay for what you use, as you use it; there are no minimum fees and no required upfront commitments. When you use resource providers with AWS CloudFormation outside the namespaces mentioned above, you incur charges per handler operation. Handler operations are create, update, delete, read, or list actions on a resource.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AWS CloudFormationDreamHost
Features
AWS CloudFormationDreamHost
Configuration Management
Comparison of Configuration Management features of Product A and Product B
AWS CloudFormation
8.2
2 Ratings
2% above category average
DreamHost
-
Ratings
Infrastructure Automation8.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated Provisioning8.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Parallel Execution8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Node Management7.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Logging7.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Version Control9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AWS CloudFormationDreamHost
Small Businesses
HashiCorp Vagrant
HashiCorp Vagrant
Score 10.0 out of 10
Flywheel
Flywheel
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Ansible
Ansible
Score 9.2 out of 10
WP Engine
WP Engine
Score 7.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Ansible
Ansible
Score 9.2 out of 10
AccuWebHosting.Com
AccuWebHosting.Com
Score 9.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AWS CloudFormationDreamHost
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(7 ratings)
7.0
(10 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
AWS CloudFormationDreamHost
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
I still give it an 8 because it's one of those tools that just quietly does the heavy lifting for you but it can really test your patience when it breaks esp with deep nested stacks. It's perfect for projects where we need clean consistent environments every time. It's less ideal for quick experimental setups like new EC2 configs or Lambda permission tweaks.
Read full review
Dreamhost
Dreamhost was previously a great web host with reliable service and top-notch features, but I can no longer recommend them. If you're looking for web hosting on a Linux platform (such as running PHP or platforms like Wordpress, Jooma, or Drupal), with simple pricing services, then this is the great service for you. One big downside is lack of phone customer support. This is especially frustrating because of their many issues the last few weeks, which aren't easily resolved or addressed by their team.
Read full review
Pros
Amazon AWS
  • All resources can segregated based on stacks which provides greater visibility
  • A complete audit trail of what went wrong while deploying a particular resource
  • Automatically rollbacks if any service as part of CloudFormation results in an error
  • The UI tool is useful
Read full review
Dreamhost
  • Customer service is industry-best. We've never had a problem that wasn't solved by them almost immediately.
  • Their dashboard is extremely easy to use and doesn't cause any confusion at all.
  • Their website speeds are good but not great. In an age when speed is important, they are good enough, especially for the price.
  • They have a great backup feature.
Read full review
Cons
Amazon AWS
  • Error Description upon Failure Needs to be Improved.
  • Slow to create, delete or update.
  • Need to delete resources manually. It can ask before starting deletion whether to skip those resources or delete them.
Read full review
Dreamhost
  • They could have better deploy solutions for not so experienced users
  • More integration with external services to automate some tasks
  • Better ways to track hosting performance
  • The user management could be easier to understand
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Dreamhost
We have every intention of staying with Dreamhost, but we are a tad concerned with the company's recent involvement in high profile litigation and controversial topics. While we don't take a position one way or another on what type of content they should host, one concern we have is that repeated attacks on their infrastructure have caused significant downtime during business hours for us, and that's something we'll have to take into consideration going forward.
Read full review
Usability
Amazon AWS
It's easy enough to get a shared template & apply it. You don't even have to download-then-upload or copy-and-paste, a publicly-accessible url works.
Diving deeper, it has enough powerful capabilities to make the life of a platform / DevOps engineer bearable.
However, you need equally deep knowledge to troubleshoot issues, when they inevitably pop up. This is the same for all IaC technologies, as they are additional abstraction layers on top of the native API provided by the cloud providers.
Read full review
Dreamhost
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Dreamhost
Whether we're calling in on the phone, live chatting or emailing, we get immediate high-quality, native English-speaking support. This cannot be overstated when it comes to hosting, because support tickets are usually time sensitive and high stress. I've always had great experiences with the limited times we've needed to use DreamHost support. We've dealt with support for many other providers and no one comes close to DreamHost.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
Cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information about persistent memory and PMem storage, see the vSphere Cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information. Management guide.For information copy of the original. The new virtual Cloning virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information about persistent memory and PMem storage, see the vSphere Resource Management Guide. For information is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information about persistent memory and PMem storage, see the vSphere Resource Management Guide. For information
Read full review
Dreamhost
We've tried a few other WordPress-specific hosts, as well as other shared hosting providers (Rackspace, WPEngine, and others). We have found that DreamHost gives the best balance of cost, performance, and features, for our needs. All vendors have their own pitfalls and shortcomings, and DreamHost isn't without its own, but it works for us.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • + We can standup a VPC in minutes
  • - It took a lot of inital time to set up
  • + With logging/rollback, made testing much easier.
Read full review
Dreamhost
  • The service can really be a positive value with its very solid performance and lack of downtime issues found with other services.
  • For those with limited hosting or web development knowledge, the service can be a challenge to fully utilize. Sometimes this may mean additional training.
  • The service also provides a number of expansion opportunities for growing with greater functionalities.
Read full review
ScreenShots

AWS CloudFormation Screenshots

Screenshot of CloudFormation - How it works overviewScreenshot of CloudFormation - High level how it worksScreenshot of CloudFormation - Template exampleScreenshot of CloudFormation - Template inputs overview