DreamHost has been around since 1996 and is one of the oldest web hosting services available. It currently hosts around 1.5 million websites, with approximately half of those running on WordPress. As with any hosting provider, DreamHost has its pros and cons. In this review, we’ll cover its uptime, page load speed, pricing, hosting plans, customer support, and more.
An Overview of DreamHost
DreamHost has about 400,000 customers in 100 countries as of 2023. Its hosting plans come with unlimited bandwidth, a free SSL certificate, unlimited storage, and automated backups. DreamHost offers shared, cloud, WordPress, VPS, and dedicated server hosting plans with live chat, email, a knowledge base, and a forum for customers to get support.
Advantages of Using DreamHost
1. Acceptable Uptime: DreamHost registered an average uptime of 99.86% between January 2022 and December 2022. The lowest performing month showed 99.29% uptime, which works out to 5 hours and 8 minutes of total downtime during that month. As for compensation, DreamHost credits customers with the cost of one day of service for each hour of server interruption; however, it limits compensation to 10% off the next prepaid renewal fee.
2. Competitive Pricing: DreamHost’s pricing remains one of the most affordable, with new plans starting as low as $2.59 per month. Its shared starter plan includes one free domain name (with at least one year of hosting), 50 GB of storage, a free SSL security certificate, and SSD storage. Plans above the starter plan come with unmetered caching, daily backups, and email hosting for one domain.
3. Multiple Hosting Plans: DreamHost offers multiple shared hosting plans, VPS hosting, cloud hosting, and dedicated hosting. It also hosts domains and email in addition to its hosting packages.
4. Simple Payment Options: DreamHost accepts all major credit cards, PayPal, and electronic checks or money orders from US-based banks.
5. Ample Storage: The most basic plan includes 50 GB of website storage, but unlimited storage is available for only $3.95 per month.
6. Intuitive Website Builder: Free WP Website Builder comes with DreamHost’s lowest-priced plan. The WP Website Builder features a bundle of WordPress plugins with drag-and-drop functionality that makes designing your website quick, easy, and code-free. If you want to build an e-commerce store, DreamHost offers a WooCommerce-focused option for $16.95 per month.
7. WordPress-Friendly: You can use WordPress with any of DreamHost’s plans, and the host recommends CMS almost universally. WordPress is easy to use for beginners, which is why DreamHost mainly targets inexperienced website designers.
8. Built With Beginners in Mind: DreamHost’s website is intuitive, easy to navigate, and focused on helping beginners and small business users to create their first website. DreamHost forgos traditional web hosting panel software cPanel in favor of an easy-to-use, custom DreamHost panel that beginners should appreciate.
9. Low-Priced Email Hosting: For an extra $1.99 per month
