DreamHost Review 2025: The Good, Bad, and the Ugly!

DreamHost is one of the leading web hosting service providers. It has grown and maintained a successful hosting business for the last 18 years. It currently hosts over 1.5 million sites, blogs, and applications.

This is no small fit, and many would assume these numbers directly relate to how good their hosting services are.

But, at IsItWP, we take our hosting recommendations seriously.

We do not rely on assumptions or other people’s reviews. We carry out all host company tests ourselves so that our reviews are based on our experience.

This is because we know how crucial reliable hosting is for online success.

For instance, when the IsItWP founder, Syed Balkhi, first started WPBeginner in 2009, he personally tested dozens of hosting providers.

He wanted to find the perfect balance of performance and value.

Since then, our team has continued this tradition of hands-on testing with every host we review.

Case in point: We recently migrated one of our test sites to DreamHost.  For consistency, we set up this test WordPress site using the default Twenty Twenty-Five theme and added dummy content, including images.

For starters, we tested their 100% uptime guarantee during our Black Friday traffic surge just to see if their claims held up.

Spoiler: It held stronger than we expected and still running smoothly. This allowed us to forge forward and test other aspects of DreamHost for this review.

As a result, we have been monitoring DreamHost’s performance and service quality for months now on this test site.

During this period, we have tested DreamHost’s speed, security, customer support, features, pricing, and ease of use.

And because we believe in providing value to our readers, we’ve partnered with DreamHost to offer our IsItWP users an exclusive 72% discount on their web hosting plans.

With that said, we will walk you through our hands-on DreamHost findings, real-world benchmarks, and honest pros/cons—so you can skip the guesswork and make a confident choice.

If you do not want to go through the entire DreamHost review, here is a summarized scorecard to help you make a quick decision.

Test	Score
Ease of Use	⭐  4.9 / 5.0
Performance	⭐  5.0 / 5.0
Hosting Plans & Pricing	⭐ 4.8 / 5.0
Features	⭐ 5.0 / 5.0
Customer Support & Documentation	⭐ 4.6 / 5.0
Average Load Time	162 ms
Average response Time	445 s
Free Domain?	Yes
Free SSL?	Yes
1-Click WordPress Installation?	Yes
Overall	⭐ 4.7 / 5.0

About DreamHost

DreamHost has an interesting journey in web hosting.

Founded in 1996 by four students at Harvey Mudd College, it actually predates Google. This highlights their experience and long-standing presence in the industry.

What started as New Dream Network is now a trusted name in hosting.

Back then, building a website was not easy. There was no WordPress, and Google didn’t exist. This made it harder to build websites and attract clients.

Early services like Webring and Dreambook, a guestbook service, helped drive traffic and referrals.

In the end, these strategies helped DreamHost establish itself in web hosting.

Today, DreamHost powers over 1.5 million websites across 100+ countries. On top of that, it serves more than 400,000 customers worldwide.

That’s quite a leap from their early days!

What really sets DreamHost apart today is their commitment to open-source technology and the WordPress community.

For a long time, it was one of the few web hosts officially recommended by WordPress.org. As if that is not enough, it has also earned PCMag’s highest rating in web hosting.

What to Expect from DreamHost

DreamHost offers a range of hosting solutions for different needs and budgets:

• Shared Hosting
• WordPress Hosting
• Managed WordPress Hosting
• VPS Hosting
• Dedicated Hosting
• WooCommerce Hosting

One thing we particularly appreciate about DreamHost is their customer-first approach.

They offer several features that demonstrate this commitment:

• Free domain registration with annual plans
• Free SSL certificates via Let’s Encrypt
• One-click WordPress installer
• User-friendly website builder (Remixer)
• A 97-day money-back guarantee

Speaking of guarantees, their 97-day refund policy is one of the longest in the industry. It gives you plenty of time to truly test their services.

The reality is that most hosts only offer 30 days, which shows real confidence in their service quality.

As WordPress experts, we appreciate their dedication to the WordPress community and their contribution to open-source development.

We can see this commitment through their optimized WordPress hosting solutions and active participation in WordPress development.

DreamHost Review

Now that you understand this Hosting company better, let us get into the DreamHost review. We have split this post into several sections to make it easier for you to go through.

Plus, if you want to skip to any section, simply click on one of the links below.

• Ease of Use
• Performance
• Hosting Plans & Pricing
• Features
• Customer Support & Documentation
• Pros & Cons
• FAQs
• Final Verdict

With that said, let us get into it.

Ease of Use ⭐  4.9 / 5.0

DreamHost is designed with beginners in mind. Right from the start, it feels simple and easy to use.

Instead of the standard cPanel, DreamHost has a custom-built control panel. This sets it apart from other hosting providers.

For those new to hosting, the panel makes navigation effortless. But if you’re used to cPanel, it may take some time to adjust.

Control Panel Experience

DreamHost’s custom control panel has a clean and modern design. Everything is well-organized, making it easy to find what you need.

From the panel, you can:

• Purchase add-ons
• Manage domains and hosting plans
• Access quick shortcuts for website management

Despite its simplicity, there is one drawback. The panel heavily promotes paid services, which can be frustrating for users who just want to manage their site without constant upsells.

Website Setup Process

Setting up a website with DreamHost is quick and straightforward. Their one-click WordPress installer lets you launch a site in minutes.

The process has two main steps:

1. Choose a domain – Register a new domain, use an existing one, or create a subdomain.
2. Select a hosting plan – If your plan supports multiple sites, you can start right away.

From our tests, the setup takes about five minutes. However, server-side processing can add another 5–7 minutes. While this delay is minor, it slightly slows down an otherwise smooth experience.

Website and Server Management

Like many top hosting providers, DreamHost offers a user-friendly dashboard to manage your website, domain, and email.

Key features include:

• Page Caching and Performance Tools: DreamHost has built-in page caching to improve site speed. This means you don’t need extra caching plugins, which can slow your site down. You can also adjust caching settings based on your needs.
• Image Optimization: Large images can slow down a website. DreamHost’s optimization tools automatically compress and resize images. This helps maintain fast load times without reducing quality.
• Domain Registration and Settings: You can register, transfer, or manage domains directly from the control panel. DreamHost also provides easy DNS management, making it simple to connect external services like email or CDNs.
• Web Application Firewall (WAF) Management: Security is a priority, and DreamHost includes a WAF to protect against threats. It helps block malicious traffic and prevents attacks like SQL injection and cross-site scripting.

DreamHost offers Remixer—an easy-to-use website builder for users who aren’t tech-savvy. It comes with pre-designed templates, making creating a professional-looking site without coding simple.

Our Thoughts

DreamHost stands out for its beginner-friendly approach. The modern interface, simple setup, and easy management tools make hosting hassle-free.

However, the frequent upsells in the control panel can be distracting.

Overall, if you want a clean and straightforward hosting solution, DreamHost is a great choice. Just be ready for a small learning curve, especially if you’re used to cPanel.

Performance ⭐  5.0 / 5.0

If you take a quick look at the DreamHost homepage, you will notice that speed is one of their key promises.

So we wanted to know: Does Dreamhost live up to its uptime promise?

As mentioned, to test the server performance for our DreamHost review, we migrated a test WordPress site using the default Twenty Twenty-Five theme and dummy content for theme development, including images. 

This way our test site looked and behaved like an actual average WordPress site.

After setting up our test site, we ran a speed test on our site using Pingdom.

As you can see in the results, our DreamHost test site loaded in less than half a second. That’s faster than 97% of all tested sites. This is incredible for a site without any performance optimization plugins.

Apart from Pingdom, we also used a testing tool called Load Impact, now K6.

We used this tool to figure out whether our DreamHost site can survive a traffic surge. As mentioned, we ran tests during Black Friday to see if DreamHost would sustain the traffic.

But Load Impact (K6) helped us simulate high traffic loads and provided insights into the site’s performance under stress.

In simple terms, it sent virtual users (VUs) to our test site and gradually built up to 100 visitors at a time to test how the server handles it.

In the chart, you can see the blue line (VUs active). This shows the number of virtual users sent to our DreamHost site. While the green line (VU load time) represents how long it took to load a web page for a user.

As you can see, DreamHost’s performance was great and consistent throughout the test. The number of live visitors on the site doesn’t impact site performance.

DreamHost Server Response Time

The content of your site can have an impact on your page loading time. For instance, if your site contains too many images, it will take more time to load. In fact, images account for most of the downloadable bytes in a typical site.

To get a more accurate result for our test, instead of solely analyzing page load time, we decided to test the actual server response time with Bitcatcha by ignoring the content of our page entirely.

Bitcatcha works differently than Pingdom. It ignores the content of your page and records the page loading time from eight different global locations: New York, LA, London, Brazil, India, Singapore, Japan, and Australia.

The speed for each location is measured three separate times, and then the results are averaged.

The result shows that DreamHost server response time remained less than half a second for all geographic locations. It was particularly great in the United States.

Our Thoughts

DreamHost promises speed, and from our tests, they deliver!

Our site loaded in under half a second, faster than 97% of tested sites. After this, Load Impact showed it handled 100 visitors smoothly, with no slowdowns.

On top of that, Bitcatcha confirmed fast server response worldwide, especially in the U.S.

From these tests, we can confirm that DreamHost is reliable, fast, and can handle heavy traffic spikes, definitely living up to its promise.

Hosting Plans & Pricing ⭐ 4.8 / 5.0

One thing we really appreciate about DreamHost web hosting plans is that despite the variety, they are well structured. This avoids the confusion we have faced with many hosting services where we could not decide on a plan because of too many overlapping offerings.

The hosting plans are also well thought out, meaning you can quickly find one that meets your needs and within your budget.

Here is a quick table for the price breakdown of DreamHost plans.

Plan	Disk Space	Bandwidth	Pricing
Shared Hosting (Cheap Hosting)	Unlimited	Unlimited	$2.59 / mo.
WordPress Hosting	Unlimited	Unlimited	$2.59 / mo.
Cloud Hosting	80 GB SSD	Unlimited	$4.50/mo.
VPS Hosting	60 GB SSD	Unmetered	$10.00/mo.
Managed WordPress Hosting	30GB SSD	Unlimited	$16.95/mo.
Dedicated Server Hosting	480 GB SSD	Unlimited	$165.00/mo.

Shared Hosting (Cheap Hosting)

DreamHost offers cheap hosting, also known as shared hosting, which is the best choice for entry-level and small websites. With cheap hosting, you share the same physical server with many other DreamHost users.

Although you share server resources like physical hard drives and RAM with other users, your website files are secured and only accessible to you.

DreamHost’s Shared Hosting plans are a good start if you’re looking for an affordable way to host your website.

This hosting provider offers 2 shared hosting plans: Shared Starter and Shared Unlimited.

These plans are perfect for new websites and blogs, offering unlimited traffic and fast SSD storage.

The Shared Starter plan is great for beginners, providing a free domain, WordPress pre-installed, and free SSL certificates to secure your site.

If you need email hosting, the Shared Unlimited plan includes professional email at your domain.

DreamHost lets you pay monthly, annually, or every 3 years. But, DreamHost’s 3-year plan provides the best value with over 47% cost savings over the monthly plan.

As the plan name suggests, these are DreamHost’s cheapest plans.

Key Features:

• Unlimited traffic
• Fast SSD storage
• Free domain included
• Pre-installed WordPress
• Free SSL certificates
• Email hosting (Shared Unlimited plan)

Pricing: Starts at $2.59 per month for the Shared Starter plan, making it a cost-effective solution for those starting out.

Get Started with DreamHost Shared Hosting Here.

WordPress Hosting

If you’re starting your WordPress journey, DreamHost WordPress Hosting can easily help you get started.

It is designed to provide a seamless experience with features that make setting up and managing your site straightforward. For starters, you get unlimited bandwidth, ensuring your site can handle varying traffic levels without downtime.

Plus, these DreamHost hosting plans include SSD storage, further ensuring faster load times and zero downtime.

The DreamHost WordPress Hosting plans also come with pre-installed WordPress, so you can start building your site immediately.

The best part is automatic updates keep your site secure and up-to-date without manual intervention.

Like with other plans from this hosting platform, you get free SSL certificates, boosting your site’s security and credibility.

Key Features:

• Unlimited bandwidth
• SSD storage
• Pre-installed WordPress
• Automatic updates
• Free SSL certificates

Pricing: Starts from $2.59 monthly for the DreamHost WordPress Starter Plan.

Get Started with DreamHost WordPress Here.

DreamHost Managed WordPress Hosting

For those seeking a hands-off approach, DreamHost offers Managed WordPress Hosting.

This means DreamHost takes care of the technical aspects, allowing you to focus on content creation, with resources optimized for WordPress, your site benefits from enhanced performance and speed.

The plan includes a built-in caching system and a content delivery network (CDN), ensuring quick content delivery to your visitors.

With Managed WordPress Plans, DreamHost provides daily backups, offering peace of mind knowing your data is safe.

On top of this, you also get managed staging environments.

As a result, you can test changes before making them live, ensuring a smooth user experience without technical experience.

Check out this article on Shared vs. Managed WordPress Hosting to learn more.

Also, check out this list of the best managed WordPress hosting companies.

Key Features:

• Managed WordPress environment
• Built-in caching and CDN
• Daily backups
• Staging environment
• Optimized performance

Pricing: Starts from $16.95 per month for the DreamHost DreamPress Plan. It is ideal if you want to avoid the technical side of WordPress.

Get Started with DreamHost Managed WordPress Hosting Here.

VPS Hosting

If you’re ready for more control over your WordPress site, VPS Hosting from DreamHost is a smart upgrade.

In a nutshell, it gives you the power and stability you need.

This is because your site gets its own dedicated RAM and SSD storage, ensuring fast load times even during traffic spikes.

You also get unlimited bandwidth, so you don’t have to worry about traffic limits slowing you down. This makes VPS hosting a great choice for small businesses, online stores, and high-traffic blogs that have outgrown shared hosting.

The VPS plan is designed for users who want flexibility.

You get full root access, which means you can personalize your server to suit your needs perfectly.

You can adjust resources, monitor performance, and even reboot your server with just a few clicks. Plus, automatic software updates and built-in security features keep your site protected.

But if you do not want to personalize the server, do not worry.

DreamHost VPS Hosting is fully managed. So, you can focus on creating content while their hosting team handles the technical stuff.

DreamHost allows you to choose from 4 different VPS plans based on RAM (2GB to 12GB) and SSD storage capacity ranging from 60GB to 360GB.

Key Features:

• Dedicated RAM (starting at 2GB, scalable)
• Unlimited bandwidth
• SSD storage for fast performance
• Custom control panel for easy management
• Automatic updates and security patches

Pricing: Starts at just $10/month for the DreamHost VPS Business Plan.

Get Started with DreamHost VPS Hosting Here.

Dedicated Server Hosting

DreamHost Dedicated Server Hosting is the perfect solution for maximum performance and control.

You get a custom-built control panel for your dedicated hosting needs. With this plan, you have the flexibility to add or remove servers and reboot or power-cycle your server whenever you need it.

For example, you can select the CPU Cores you want and choose from 6-Core and 12-Core. You can also select the Storage and Memory RAM you want.

The Storage options range from 480 SSD to 1920 SSD. While the Memory RAM options range from 16GB to 128GB.

This is ideal for large-scale websites, agencies, and applications requiring high performance.

DreamHost also gives you full root access, allowing advanced customization and server optimization.

If you’re uncomfortable managing the technical side, their expert support team is available 24/7 to help.

Key Features:

• Dedicated hardware for maximum performance
• Minimum 16GB RAM, scalable options available
• 1TB+ storage for high data needs
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Full root access for advanced customization

Pricing: Starts from $165 monthly for the Standard DreamHost Dedicated Server Hosting. But remember, the price depends on the configuration you choose.

Get Started with DreamHost Dedicated Server Hosting Here.

Cloud Hosting

DreamHost’s Cloud Hosting is a fantastic option for scalability and reliability.

With cloud hosting, your site is hosted on a network of cloud servers. So, if one server goes down, your site stays up.

This makes it reliable and affordable for businesses that can’t afford downtime.

Unlike traditional hosting, cloud hosting is charged based on usage, so you only pay for what you use. This is helpful for sites with fluctuating traffic, like mobile and web apps, seasonal blogs, or event-based websites.

The DreamHost cloud hosting plans include SSD storage, which ensures fast load times. On top of this, you get unlimited bandwidth, so you never have to worry about overage fees.

It’s also easy to set up, making it a great choice for beginners who want a user-friendly hosting solution.

With 24/7 support and a 100% uptime guarantee, DreamHost Cloud Hosting is a reliable and flexible option for any WordPress site.

Key Features:

• Fully customizable cloud servers
• SSD storage for fast speeds
• Up to 8GB RAM per instance
• Flexible pricing based on usage
• Ideal for developers, startups, and applications

Pricing: Starts from $4.50/month for the DreamHost DreamCompute plan.

Get Started with DreamHost Cloud Hosting Here.

DreamHost Features ⭐ 5.0 / 5.0

As you have seen above, Each DreamHost package has unique features that can help you improve your online presence.

But below is an overview of DreamHost features we want to highlight based on our personal experience. Each feature brings practical tools to help you with your WordPress journey, whether you’re just starting or already have a site up and running.

Liftoff AI Website Builder

DreamHost Liftoff Website Builder is a game-changer for beginners who want to create a WordPress site without any technical hassle.

Using AI it helps you design a professional-looking website in minutes. We’ve used it ourselves, and it’s incredibly easy. Just answer a few questions about your site, and Liftoff will do the rest.

It’s perfect for small businesses, bloggers, or anyone who wants to get online quickly. Plus, it has built-in hosting, so you don’t need to worry about setting it up separately.

Check out this article to learn how to build a complete WordPress site with AI.

DreamShield

DreamShield is DreamHost’s security suite designed to keep your WordPress site safe. It includes daily backups, malware scanning, and removal, so you can focus on running your site without stress.

We’ve relied on DreamShield for our test site, and it’s been great when dealing with potential threats. It’s easy to set up and works quietly in the background, giving you peace of mind.

DreamHost SEO Toolkit

The DreamHost SEO Toolkit is one of the best provided by a hosting service.

It provides easy-to-follow recommendations to optimize your content, meta tags, and more. We’ve used it to fine-tune our test site. From this, we noticed that it is especially helpful for beginners unfamiliar with SEO.

This is because it is integrated directly into your hosting dashboard, so you don’t need to install extra plugins.

Free SSL/TLS Certificates

Website security isn’t just important—it’s expected.

DreamHost offers free SSL/TLS certificates with every hosting plan, a big win for security and trust. It encrypts data and adds that little padlock icon in the browser bar, which visitors look for.

The free SSL/TLS certificates encrypt data between your website and visitors, keeping sensitive information safe.

This also improves your credibility, as many browsers now warn users about sites without SSL. Plus, an SSL certificate can boost your search engine rankings, making it a must-have for any site.

Bunny CDN

Bunny CDN is a content delivery network that speeds up your site by loading it from servers closer to your visitors. We’ve tested it, and the difference in load times is quite noticeable.

Remember, faster pages mean a better visitor experience and can even improve search rankings.

It’s easy to integrate with DreamHost web hosting and works well for sites with global audiences.

Online Store

Even if you have built a website before, creating an online store can be complicated.

DreamHost makes it easy to set up an online store with WooCommerce integration. Apart from this, their Online Store plan includes everything you need, such as easy product management, secure payment processing, and built-in marketing tools.

The best part is you do not need technical skills to use this feature.

It can also help you sell anything, including physical products, digital downloads, or services.

Business Name Generator

Struggling to find the perfect business name? DreamHost Business Name Generator can help.

It is a fun and practical tool for brainstorming your brand’s name.

We’ve played around with it, and it’s surprisingly helpful when you’re stuck for ideas. Just type in a keyword, which suggests creative names and available domain options.

It’s a small but useful feature, especially for new businesses or side projects.

Transfer Your Domain

Moving your domain to DreamHost is a smooth process with step-by-step guidance. Their domain transfer service ensures minimal downtime, so your website stays online during the transition.

Plus, you get a free year of domain registration when you transfer.

By managing your domain and hosting in one place, you simplify your website setup and maintenance.

Professional Email

DreamHost’s Professional Email service lets you create custom email addresses (like [email protected]). It adds a level of professionalism that free email services can’t match. It’s easy to set up and works seamlessly with your hosting.

You also get spam protection, plenty of storage, and easy access across all your devices. This helps you stay securely connected with clients and customers wherever you are.

Pro Services

Need help managing your website? DreamHost Pro Services offers expert design, SEO, and website maintenance support.

Their Pro Services team can also handle tasks like website migration and optimization.

Basically, their team handles the technical work while you focus on running your business.

It’s a great option if you want professional-level assistance without hiring an in-house developer.

Check out this updated SeaHawk review, an excellent WordPress Pro Service alternative.

Customer Support & Documentation ⭐4.6 / 5.0

If you need help with DreamHost’s hosting service, you can check out their extensive knowledge base, which includes tutorials and recommendations.

But you can contact DreamHost support if you do not get an answer. DreamHost’s support portal is immensely helpful for building and growing your website with a DreamHost hosting account.

But you can also reach DreamHost via live chat and email support. All these options are available 24/7/365.

The DreamHost support team strives to answer all emails within 24 hours. Although call-back requests are available but not included in every hosting package.

You’ll have to subscribe to it separately either by making a one-off payment or a monthly subscription. Bear in mind that callbacks cannot be made for numbers outside the United States and Canada.

Pros & Cons

DreamHost Pros:

Here are a few things we liked about DreamHost

• Extended Money Back Guarantee: DreamHost offers an extended 97 days for new users to try their hosting service risk-free. If you are unsatisfied with their service, you can request a full refund within 97 days.
• Free domain name: Starting a website is super easy with DreamHost. Just choose a new domain name you like, own it for free for the first year, and host it on your DreamHost account.
• Website builder: Quickly build stunning websites in minutes, not months, with Remixer, the intuitive drag and drop website builder.
• Free SSL certificate: Secure your website with free SSL encryption with Let’s Encrypt.

DreamHost Cons:

Here are a few limitations of DreamHost.

• No professional email setup: The starter plan doesn’t come with a professional email setup. For that, you’ll have to opt for an unlimited plan.
• No phone support: DreamHost doesn’t offer free phone support for their shared hosting plans.

FAQs: DreamHost Review

Having helped thousands of users choose a web hosting plan and start their website, we have answered almost every question. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about DreamHost.

Final verdict: is DreamHost Worth It? ⭐ 4.7 / 5.0

We think DreamHost offers a very reliable platform for hosting your websites. Their starting prices may be slightly higher than the competition, but being upfront about the prices, they leave no room for confusion down the line. With a DreamHost plan, you don’t find any hidden charges, and it comes with unlimited website and email hosting.

We were also impressed with their custom control panel and quick support. DreamHost could be the best website hosting solution for you if you don’t want a cPanel-based backend option. We rate DreamHost as an excellent choice for hosting any kind of website.

That’s it from us! We hope that you enjoyed reading this DreamHost review. If you want to check the performance of your site after you purchase a DreamHost plan, you can use this  Free Website Speed Test Tool for WordPress from IsItWP.

Also, Check out the articles below if you are wondering how DreamHost compares to other hosting solutions.

• Bluehost vs DreamHost
• HostGator vs DreamHost
• WPEngine vs DreamHost

These articles will help you compare DreamHost alternatives to see if they are actually right for you.