DreamHost Reviews

If you're not too technical, don't want to spend time managing a server and want something quality while sticking to a budget, DreamHost is the best it can get. We may be able to save money by switching to something like AWS, but for our usage it doesn't totally make sense even with potential cost-savings and improved speeds. The support and ease of use cannot be overstated here.

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.

It works really well for small or even medium scaled projects. If you need something fast and easy to use, it's great. You're able to host how many sites you want, create users and use some tools like Wordpress with "one-click" installs.
But if you need some scalable solution for a big project, maybe it's not as good as AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, since their pricing policies are much better for those cases.

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.

Dreamhost is really well suited for different types of web hosting. Its unlimited data bandwidth plans can really help a company with an e-commerce site flourish without fears of limited bandwidth. The service also provides free SSL certificates for added security. It is also great for web developers that want to create a specialized site using coding tools such as Subversion.

DreamHost's services are best targeted towards personal sites or small to medium sized business sites for businesses that don't have a full-time IT staff to manage WordPress or the infrastructure that goes along with it. If the requirements of the web site/application exceed that of a simple webserver and mysql database (eg, memcached, redis, etc, or other custom services), DreamHost's services are likely to be lacking. Which is not to say you couldn't use those services with the DreamHost deployment, just that they're unavailable from the same vendor, and as such there will be a performance penalty when utilizing them cross-vendor.

More technical natured folk who want to get into optimizing performance of their site on the server level (beyond the software that DreamHost provides, and the actual application software) will want a more robust solution. Larger deployments of sites (WordPress or otherwise) where the deployment is more advanced than a simple application server, will likely also want to look elsewhere.

DreamHost is well suited for small businesses. As an art director that needs to manage multiple websites and client domains, it is important to use DreamHost for structure and organization. When working with clients, it is important to be able to manage each client individually. You can have private servers, allow each website to redirect to any other site desired, and each can easily be given multiple emails. When working with various clients, being able to be quick to update the website for clients is important, DreamHost provides that.

DreamHost is well-suited to people who have moderate to high levels of experience in web administration. It has all the tools you need to get the job done, plus some (like one-click installs) that can make your job much easier. It's also very convenient to have everything (including email config, databases, and domain registration) within one dashboard. DreamHost is also good for a beginner who wants to learn. The learning curve is real, but support is always helpful, and, again, having everything in one place is a plus for the learner. If a beginner just wants to throw up a website and isn't interested in learning the technical details of website administration and DNS, DreamHost is not the best solution. Such a person would be better served by finding a fully-hosted and managed software-as-a-service solution, such as WordPress.com, Weebly, SquareSpace, etc.

If you need something that they already have a one-click installer for, and is not that mission critical for your business, I would really recommend starting with DreamHost. I have no regrets about starting to blog using their WordPress service some years ago. With some clicks, I got my domain, email, and blog up and running.