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 around 1.5 million sites, blogs, and applications. IsItWP users get an exclusive 40% discount on web hosting.
4.7 / 5.0 5.0 / 5.0 5.0 / 5.0
4.0 / 5.0 4.0 / 5.0 4.0 / 5.0 4.7 / 5.0
DreamHost is one of the oldest web hosting companies, founded back in 1996, even before the advent of Google. DreamHost is now the home for over 1.5 million websites, blogs, and applications, with over 400k happy customers, spanning throughout more than 100 countries.
DreamHost offers a wide variety of web hosting plans for customers of all sizes. Their hosting services include:
Their team is top-notch, and they are always ahead of the curve when it comes to their technology stack. It is one of the officially recommended web hosts by WordPress.org and also the highest-rated web host by PCMag.com.
They offer everything you need to get your website up and running. They give you free domain registration with annual plans, free SSL encryption with Let’s Encrypt, a one-click installer for WordPress and a website builder known as Remixer for those who want to kick start a website with absolutely no coding involved.
On top of that, every shared hosting plan with DreamHost comes with a 97-day money back guarantee. That means you get full three months to try DreamHost and if you’re not fully satisfied, you can request a full refund.
They are also a domain name registrar and offer domain registration and parking services as well.
DreamHost’s shared hosting plan starts at $8.95 per month (regular price). You’ll find their extensive knowledge base immensely helpful to kick off a website from the ground up.
4.3 / 5.0
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.
There are 2 shared hosting plans: Shared Starter and Shared Unlimited. DreamHost lets you pay monthly, annually or every 3 years. DreamHost’s 3-year plan provides the best value with over 47% cost savings over the monthly plan.
With any of the DreamHost hosting options, you can waive off the domain name registration fees for one year. You’ll also get free SSL encryption, and 1-click WordPress installer.
Unlike most other web hosting providers, DreamHost comes with a 97-day risk-free money back guarantee.
5.0 / 5.0
DreamHost’s dedicated hosting could be the best choice for websites with high-traffic volume. With dedicated hosting, you get a complete server for your sole use, giving you much more control over the server and operating environment.
With DreamHost’s dedicated server, you get RAID 1 storage, 24×7 server monitoring and tech support, 100% network uptime guarantee, DDoS protection, full root, and shell access and more.
You get a custom-built control panel for your dedicated hosting needs with the flexibility to add or remove servers, reboot or powercycle your server whenever you need it. Plus, you can also manage your domains, websites and email address with ease.
4.6 / 5.0
Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting is the best bet for you if you want to build websites with secured data or resource-heavy applications that are growing through rapid growth and expansion. With VPS, you get a tremendous amount of bandwidth and storage along with easy backup and scalability.
With every managed VPS hosting plan, you get expert assistance on installing manual security patches, user-friendly control panel, 20 x faster SSD storage.
DreamHost allows you to choose from three different VPS plans based on RAM (1GB to 4GB) and SSD storage capacity ranging from 30GB to 240GB.
If you’re technically inclined and looking for an inexpensive, scalable server that gives you full control with root access, you can choose DreamCompute, which is unmanaged VPS hosting also known as cloud hosting.
5.0 / 5.0
DreamHost’s WordPress hosting protects your website from WordPress specific vulnerabilities and malicious attacks.
With their managed WordPress hosting, you’ll get automatic WordPress updates so you can ensure your site is always updated and secured. With every plan, automatic daily backups and on-demand backups are included.
DreamHost’s managed WordPress hosting is the best solution for you if you don’t want to perform site maintenance yourself and needs WordPress specific support for maintaining your WordPress site. With Plus plan or higher, you get Jetpack Pro subscription, daily malware and scanning repair, and instant access to the extensive collection of WordPress themes.
4.8 / 5.0
DreamHost offers WooCommerce hosting for users who want to quickly build an online store without the tedious process of WordPress and WooCommerce installation. WooCommerce hosting is almost similar to the Plus plan of managed WordPress hosting. The only difference is that WooCommerce will be preinstalled on your account.
Upon subscribing to a WooCommerce hosting plan, you can easily get your online store up and running just by logging into your WordPress dashboard. The storefront theme is preinstalled with WooCommerce hosting. You’ll also get a Jetpack Pro subscription.
Here’re a few things we liked about DreamHost
Here are a few limitations of DreamHost…
Does Dreamhost live up to their uptime promise?
To test the server performance for our DreamHost review, we’ve created a test WordPress site using the default Twenty Seventeen 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, which is incredible for a site without any performance optimization plugins.
Apart from Pingdom, we also used a testing tool called Load Impact to figure out whether our DreamHost site can survive a traffic surge. Load Impact sent some virtual users (VUs) to our site and gradually built up to 100 visitors at a time to test how the server handles it.
In the chart, you can find a blue line (VUs active) which shows the number of virtual users sent to our DreamHost site and a green line (VU load time) which represents how much time it took to load a web page for a user.
As you can see, DreamHost’s performed was great and consistent throughout the test. The number of live visitors on the site doesn’t have an impact on site performance.
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.
From the result, you can see that DreamHost server response time remained under less than half a second for all geographic locations. It was particularly great in the United States.
If you need help with DreamHost’s hosting service, you can check out their extensive knowledge base that comprises of tutorials and recommendations. You’ll find DreamHost’s support portal immensely helpful for building and growing your website with a DreamHost hosting account.
DreamHost provides live chat and ticket based support for free with every hosting plan. The main drawback is that Live Chat is only available during 5am – 10pm PST, 7 days a week.
The DreamHost support team strives to answer all emails within 24 hours. Although call back requests are available, they’re not included in every hosting package. You’ll have to subscribe to it separately either by making a one-off payment or monthly subscription. Bear in mind that callbacks cannot be made for numbers outside the United States and Canada.
If you’re just starting out with a new website, you can choose DreamHost’s shared hosting plan.
There are 2 shared hosting plans: Shared Starter and Shared Unlimited.
For WordPress optimized hosting, you can choose from their managed WordPress hosting plans.
Take a detailed look at the pricing of different DreamHost hosting plans.
| PLAN | DISK SPACE | BANDWIDTH | PRICE |
| Shared Hosting | Unlimited | Unlimited | $2.59 / mo. |
| WordPress Hosting Starter | Unlimited | Unlimited | $2.59 / mo. |
| Basic VPS Hosting | 30 GB | Unmetered | $10 / mo. |
| Dedicated Hosting | 1 TB | Unlimited | $169 / mo. |
Having helped thousands of users choose a web hosting plan and start their website, we have answered just about every question you can think of. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about DreamHost.
Which DreamHost plan should I get?
The answer really depends on your hosting needs. When you’re starting out, simply choose their shared hosting plan. DreamHost has only a single shared hosting plan, which makes it easy to get started with an account. If you want to create an online store, then we recommend using their WooCommerce hosting which is specifically designed to handle eCommerce websites.
Can DreamHost handle high traffic?
DreamHost is capable of handling high traffic. But keep in mind that it all depends on the plan you choose. If your site starts consuming too much resources, then DreamHost will ask you to upgrade to a higher plan.
Can I upgrade my DreamHost plan later?
We always recommend users to start with the smaller plans and upgrade as needed. DreamHost makes it very easy for you to upgrade.
Does DreamHost offer a month-to-month payment option?
Yes! DreamHost offers month-to-month payment option. However, keep in mind that they offer significant discounts for longer-term deals.
Can I create subdomains in DreamHost?
Yes, you can easily create subdomains in DreamHost using the cPanel.
Do I have to register my domain name with DreamHost?
No. While you can claim a free domain name while purchasing a hosting plan, you’re not obliged to register a domain name with DreamHost. You can use Godaddy, NameCheap, or any of your preferred domain name registrar.
Does DreamHost offer free SSL?
Yes, DreamHost offers free SSL with all of their plans. Ecommerce plans come with dedicated IPs and private SSL.
Do I need to purchase the addons that DreamHost offers me?
No, you do not need to purchase any addons at the time of purchase. Should you decide that you need them later, you can always add them to your account.
Does DreamHost really offer unlimited disk space and bandwidth?
Just like any other hosting company, DreamHost also advertises unlimited resources. When they say unlimited, it just means that you don’t have to worry about disk storage or bandwidth because you get enough resources to operate a small site in a normal condition.
Can I create an ecommerce site on DreamHost?
Absolutely. DreamHost’s WooCommerce hosting plan comes pre-configured with all the things you need to start an online store.
Wondering how DreamHost stacks up against other web hosting companies? See our side-by-side comparison to see for yourself.
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 comes with an unlimited website and email hosting.
We were also impressed with their custom control panel and quick support. DreamHost could be the best 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.
All DreamHost plans include a money-back guarantee. 
I’ve been using Dreamhost for almost a full year now. The live chat support is fast and helps you with your situations. My site was in a bad situation and the first person that tried to help me, caused it to be even worse. The second person who I talked to later on helped and fixed it all for me. They do have a very good understanding of handling problems with WordPress. I am glad the live chat support is active and helpful. The ticket system is nearly useless, I had no response for over an hour until I just gave in and got a live person on the live chat. So it is best to use the live chat for anyone that needs faster support.
A so dreamhost is just plain dope. There support as been there for me in the worst of times. Mind you my fault 98% of the time but they were there. Also very knowledgeable and if an answer was incorrect they hunt me down via email and correct it. If only their one click install of wordpress was automatically optimized for speed. Out of the box it’s slow as molasses. But everything else is on point.
I like DreamHost because their support service is prompt, friendly and accurate. I have have been with them for several years and am really happy with their service.
Dreamhost is a great company. Fantastic speed and uptime and knowledgable support staff. Highly recommended.
Been with DH since 2010, recommend it routinely to clients. However, very discouraged by the slow response to Support Questions. In the last week, I submitted 5+ support questions for (myself and clients). None of them were responded to within 24 hours despite being marked as urgent.
When support does reply the information is often helpful and valuable, but the delay is unacceptable. One client had an unresolved issue with her website by 2 days because of this.
DH you can do better. This is not meeting my expectations.
I have been with Dreamhost hosting for about a year. I only needed support on something recently, and only because I had made a mess of something.
I have to say I was just astonished at how good the customer support was. Really, really impressed. They got back to me within a few hours and not only told me solutions, they actually went ahead and did the implementation for me – and it was not light work.
They even offered help with questions that were not related to the hosting service.
It is often hard to work out which hosting business to sign up with. But based on my experience, I would put Dreamhost at the top.
I have been with Dreamhost for many years. It’s been mostly good. It’s frustrating when there is a problem, since you can’t call anyone. I really hate those times, but they are not very often. Unfortunately, they are experiencing blocked email with all AT&T and SBCGLOBAL email addresses. This is an incredible inconvenience, and they have not even communicated with their customers about it! Not one message! I have submitted multiple support tickets and finally resorted to online chat. The technician said it could be weeks to remove the block. If that is the case, Dreamhost, you REALLY need to get out in front of this and communicate with your customers. This is interfering with my work on a daily basis and making things pretty inefficient. Also, the technician was probably a nice person and all, but the attitude seemed to be, “tough break, we can’t fix it, you can feel free to switch hosts.” What i want to hear is, “We have an issue. We are aware. We are working 24/7 on it. Here it is, explained. Here is what we at Dreamhost are doing to address it. Here is why it could take time, and here is how long it might take. We apologize profusely.”
I don’t need excuses about shared servers, etc. Fix this. In this day and age, weeks to resolve a block is ridiculous.
I have enjoyed DreamHost so well! They solve difficult problems so fast that I can’t believe that they still have time to help me with their forums and other DreamHost services
They have a great and helpful support team. I put in a ticket for a problem and within an hour the issue was handled for me.
I have been with Dream Host since 2003. I have had very few issues and great support! With the current climate of security issues, Dream Host has naturally been cautious and concerned about the security of their client’s web sites. I recently had an issue getting into my account and before I could gain access I was faced with the dilemma of asking support to reset my password. I was sent an email with numerous security questions to verify the authenticity of my identity. At first, I was irritated with all the “hoops” I had to jump through. But then I realized that I was the one who had created the issue and lost my sign in information (I just do not need to sign in to those areas because I have had very issues).
Once verified, everything was resolved in a very timely manner. I really appreciate the support team’s professional attitude, patience and their concern for the security of my web site. Thanks!
Dream Host IS a dream to work with. This is amazing technical support and friendly. They go above and beyond. I love their service. I’m a heavy user of support and more complex sites. It’s wonderful to be taken care of.
I have been with Dreamhost for many, many, years. They have wonderful service. The tech support people are professional and efficient. My issue was resolved quickly with no problems.
My own experience has been the opposite: excellent hosting. And yes, the support is excellent too.
As a creative coder and a UX design freelancer I have worked with many companies using various hosting and PAAS providers (from Rackspace, Amazon, Site5 to Heroku, etc) in the past and I found Dreamhost extremely well suited for a variety of sites/portals and projects. Their support has always been fast and they’ve resolved any issues we’ve had straight away. I would highly reccommend them and use them also for my personal site.
I have been paying for Dreamhost’s DreamPress while developing our site. We only had issues from the beginning and payed over a year. FInaly we moved to Hostgator and everything works -and fast. dreamhost refunded me 1 month of service which is a joke.
The support response was fine, the problem is with the hosting service, – there have been far too many outages lately. We have begun shopping around with other service providers, it will take a lot to keep us with DH.
It took 4 tries, but I finally was able to get back into my Dashboard! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
poor hosting service. poor customer service.
I been with dreamhost since last 5-6 years. had enough of poor service. busy moving my account.
It didnt correct my problem. I still can’t import DARS from wamp WordPress to dream host WordPress.
Fabulous customer service — I’ve yet to have a bad experience
I have multiple accounts (for myself and for clients) on both Dreamhost and another hosting provider. Dreamhost’s control panel is less intuitive for the non-programmer but they are always ahead of the curve in terms of advancements in technology. I love their commitment to being engaged with their customers and their technical support is great, especially live chat.
Setup went OK. I was up and going in less than an hour (including time out for a beer). I’m a happy camper.
As always, Dreamhost helps with every issue.Thank you!
Service is amazing, really fast. The only exception is that the guys always forward us to the wiki. But most of the time its what we really need.
Thanks.
Got issues resolved, it took a couple of tries. Due to my inability to handle the jargon and understand what means what.
It was more comp[lex than I thought, some of the terminology threw me, but thanks to further discussion with a friend I got a clue of what was going on and resolved the problem.
It could have been easier if there was a direct discussion on a phone.