Likelihood to Recommend 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 WordPress VIP really changed the game when it comes to WordPress CMS and Content Management. A one-stop shop for all our client's business needs. We are focusing on Content Management instead of technicalities. The big advantage is the security features covering all recent vulnerabilities that any WordPress developer/user wastes lots of precious time fixing/updating. Performance-wise, WordPress VIP is definitely up there. We’ve been doing lots of optimization work over the last few years. Every client wants to score 100. With WordPress VIP we decreased the time spent on optimization significantly and now feel confident with taking more performance optimisation work than we did before. Lastly, maybe the most important for every business is the support quality. WordPress VIP runs a superb support team with phenomenal knowledge and expertise. Quick to respond and solves issues here and now. It is definitely recommended.
Read full review Pros 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 Keeps us informed of upcoming releases/patches associated with the Wordpress Platform. Introduces us to products/companies/Wordpress plugins as necessary when new business needs arise. Amy and Allie are excellent at managing the relationship; speaking with them on our monthly calls is a pleasure. Read full review Cons 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 Too many different dashboard formats Everything should have the same look and feel. The admin portal looks different than the user content portal Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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 It's true enterprise ready hosting framework providing unparalleled hosting infrastructure for WordPress. Where an organisation has high load needs, but with stability and scale VIP delivers. It provides complete peace of mind that the hosting, security and scalability are taken care of and organisations can focus on developing out their website strategies
Read full review Usability There is documentation for everything you might need.
Read full review Support Rating 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 The people who work for WordPress VIP clearly are passionate about representing the organisation. Therefore when support is required, they do go above and beyond what you may expect in terms of overall support. They take security very seriously, and due to the nature of VIP, it's rarely a concern for the end-user, if at all.
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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 Our team manages 4 different brands' websites and before WordPress VIP we were using multiple different hosts including
DreamHost and AWS. These were convoluted and didn't offer the enterprise features for our organization that WP VIP was capable of. We also considered
Pantheon , but they were not Wordpress-centric enough for the direction we were going.
Read full review Return on Investment 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 Working as a WordPress VIP gold partner has helped our business grow from 12 staff to 28 staff in 2 years. They have brought many projects to the table that are always the right ones for us and they really understand our goals as a business. Read full review ScreenShots