DreamHost vs. Flywheel

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.

Incentivized

Flywheel is particularly well-suited for hands-on WordPress managed hosting. It's also perfect for developers who build site's locally on Local and then want an effortless way to import them into their managed hosting environment. Flywheel particularly excels in scenarios where a customer needs managed. WordPress hosting that handles daily backups and offers test and live environments for a reasonable price.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Customer Service
• User Interface
• User Experience
• Creative Support

Incentivized

• 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

Incentivized

• Flywheel is more expensive than many hosting companies

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Compared to WP Engine and Pantheon, Flywheel offers the most affordable and easy-to-use managed hosting platform for WordPress websites. I actually prefer Flywheel's UI a bit more to WP Engine's. Media Temple simply doesn't offer an affordable hosting option that particularly caters to WordPress websites. Flywheel has become my favorite among managed hosting platforms that are targeted on servicing WordPress developers.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Fast/easy to create new sites with blueprints
• Easy to work locally with Local

Incentivized