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
GreenGeeks
Score 1.0 out of 10
N/A
GreenGeeks is a green energy web hosting provider putting back into the grid through wind energy that we consume. The company offers Shared, Reseller, VPS and Dedicated Server packages for those just starting out all the way up to the professionals.
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.
If you are looking for a shared hosting service, Green Geeks pricing is comparable to most vendors. T2 tech support is generally knowledgeable, T1 is responsive via chat, but often is not able to resolve issues (other than KB questions). Load balancing on a shared server is difficult for all vendors, since individual website usage is hard to predict. Vendors have different ways of dealing with this - some simply do not guarantee resource limits (e.g. available memory, PHP threads, etc). Green Geeks does provide resource limits as part of their contracts, but they frequently downgrade those limits, presumably to address overloaded servers. BUT BE AWARE - I believe GreenGeeks uses unethical practices when a customer wants to cancel. It is my personal experience that they make it extremely difficult / impossible to cancel a contract. I feel the process is not transparent and they will ignore emails directing them to cancel. In my experience, they will then proceed to charge customers for a renewed contract. I believe multiple customers have reported this problem.
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.
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.
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.
From a technical perspective, all shared server vendors are comparable. Bluehost has terrible customer support. A2 is more expensive, but has more personalized support.
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.
