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
Linode
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Linode helps users simplify cloud infrastructure with Linux virtual machines and tools to develop, deploy, and scale applications. Linode aims to make virtual computing more accessible, affordable, and simple. The vendor states the Linode infrastructure-as-a-service platform is deployed across 11 global markets from data centers around the world and is supported by a Next Generation Network, advanced APIs, comprehensive services, and a library of educational resources. Linode products,…
$0
Monthly or Hourly
Pricing
DreamHost
Linode
Editions & Modules
Shared
$3.95
per month
DreamPress
$16.95
per month
Dedicated CPU 4 GB RAM
$30/month or $0.05/hour
N/A
Dedicated CPU 8 GB RAM
$60/month or $0.09/hour
N/A
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
DreamHost
Linode
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
Additional Details
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CPU, transfer, storage, and RAM bundled into one simple price.
Increase storage capacity with additional Block Storage or S3-compatible Object Storage. Add instant Backups with complete independency to your stack. Ensure your applications and services are highly-available with Linode NodeBalancers.
Deploy Kubernetes clusters with our fully-managed container orchestration engine.
While SiteGround, GoDaddy, and DreamHost all offer ease of use and work OK when they're working, their performance is not consistent. All three can become very slow for even very low traffic sites. Linode, in comparison, offers much more consistent performance and any issues …
I first heard about Linode from ads in every episode of Marco Arment's podcasts Under the Radar and Accidental Tech Podcast. They also offered discount codes that amounted to extended free trials. Marco's endorsement, combined with the generous introductory free period and the …
In short, where most people seem to be looking for how to build the biggest, bad-a$$ system of cloud services, I'm working on the opposite -- making small, fast, hyper-efficient solutions with minimal cost and maximal power. Linode embraces the ability to do this.
Linode is competitively priced, but more importantly its management interface is fantastic. Over the past seven years, I have seen firsthand the deep expertise behind the decisions they make in both their physical layers (data centers) and software stacks.
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.
Linode provides a wide range of configurations and prices, suitable for many budgets and needs. They also have a lot of experience in providing these services for many years. We have almost exclusively used Debian distributions for our work, but they offer a large number of other versions of Linux. Beside "raw" distributions of Linux, they also offer other VMs containing specialized installations of a variety of applications, such as Wordpress, Drupal and Docker.
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.
I've been with them a long time. They provide me with the capabilities I need coupled with knowledgeable support that's not pay-for-extra. However, if I move to a non-Linux OS, the level of support by necessity will drop off. I can still ask questions about the infrastructure but I my ability to ask about OS features will decrease.
It's pretty easy for me, but I preferred their old interface before it was called 'cloud' (not a computer science term.) The new interface looks easier but I had to ask for help for things I used to be able to find myself. If someone was new to it--without having used their old interface--it might be easier for them than it originally was for me.
There is very little planned downtime. Whenever planned downtime is necessary I'm always given lots of advanced notice and an explanation that I can pass along to my users that they'll understand. I really appreciate that Linode appreciates my commitment to reliable service to my users. It shows that they believe they've been successful when I'm successful.
Linode is an infrastructure provider issues related to performance are really on me. Linode provides a capable infrastructure and allows me to tailor performance of the services I provide to my customers to my specific situation. Linode allows me to implement "tweaks" that, from experience, I know will do the job with little risk without a whole bunch of static from idiot support 'droids who just get in the way ("this isn't supported at the present time").
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.
Support from Linode has always been excellent for us. We've barely had to wait any time between ticket requests and replies, and we've always received replies that actually answered our problems. Whenever maintenance has occurred on Linode's side, they've always alerted us beforehand and left a ticket open as a source of communication in case we had any issues after maintenance or any other questions that we needed answered.
We got kick started with an initial walkthrough along with some free credits. The initial walkthrough helped us to understand Linode's ecosystem and start our hands on with Linode. We tried out some apps from Marketplace initially with the free credits, which not only helped us understand Linode better, but also those apps. We had implemented many such apps to our customers with Linode
We're a small organization. The implementation of our Linode solution was trivial. Once I justified a cloud server to my bosses over a co-location -- the co-lo wasn't as fast as our linode server in load tests -- it was a matter of moving one Linux implementation to another. Trivial.
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.
Compared to the big cloud players like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, MS Azure, Oracle Cloud, and co., Linode's product is simpler and cheaper. For quick and straightforward client engagements, the power and flexibility afforded by the previously mentioned vendors are overkill. Compared specifically to some of its closest rivals: Versus DigitalOcean, Linode has better pricing for VMs; while compared to Vultr, while Vultr's backups are cheaper (20% of VM cost versus effective ~25% of VM cost), Vultr's DDoS protection is an add-on product, which made the overall cost of the deployment more expensive. The runner-up competitor for our use cases, Hetzner, offers superior pricing; However due to their flaky KYC and anti-fraud which was a pain to deal with, I lost faith in them. They also do not have a region in East Asia, which would impact performance.
Although I use only a fraction of their product offerings, the total set makes scalability an easy goal to shoot for. As I said, I have a few customers that use the services my Linode provides...and I like it that way. However, should I need to scale up, I can...without incurring any more cost than I need to.
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.
