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. 
Well, let me say that Dreamhost Team does a great job for us. For example for me, they tackle every issue for me in case anything arises.
Keep on keeping on rising high as a star!
The DreamHost team are exceptional professionals. Even though so far away from me, they are always so close. Every time I need support, they are there at the other end of the line. Always make me happy with their amazing newsletter. Even though it’s not so easy for me to deal with the computer language, their dashboard is absolutely user friendly. No endless efforts to achieve what I’m looking for. When I first chose their services from similar companies, was completely by chance. I have never regret it. Thank you.
Dreamhost has been by far the most reliable hosting service I have encountered. I have been managing my church website for the last 6 years on Dreamhost. The Chat support has been exceptional and we now have two domains that are managed with one account which is very convenient. I like the fact that such tools as Block the Hacker and the Spider Bot blocks are very good. Web panel makes it very easy to manage accounts and domains not to mention the email accounts. I also like the fact that the carbon footprint is green. I would recommend Dreamhost to any organization or individual that is looking for hosting service.
Had an urgent question on an obscure issue, and got an assist almost immediately. Person on the other end of the chat answered all my questions, offered additional info, then answered subsequent questions. Perfect! Thanks for excellent service.. again. ~Cheers
Awsome customer support service.
I would like ot let everyone know they resolved my issue in a few minutes. It looked like I was going to have to get a support ticket but the one-line person said they would look at something and found an error. Fixed and hurray. Good work. I appreciate being listened to, even if I had to push a little.
Outstanding service towards clients even with no existing fares to being able yo keep using their services. Completely satisfied. A big yes.
I’ve been using Dreamhost for more than 10 years. They always respond quickly to any support issues. I love their Green Hosting and attitude. I also like their page load speeds and uptime. Price is great too.
I started using dreamhost to experiment learning to do web programming, but then became disabled with a brain injury, and haven’t been able to do much with it yet. However, on the occasions when I’ve wanted to try an idea that requires web services, I’ve been able to find appropriate solutions and implement them, mostly without help, but when I needed help, I found it friendly and available. Dreamhost has the services I need at a price I can afford. It is the first service I would recommend to anyone else wanting to start a website, whether it would be a blog, a wiki, an email service, an educational site, a personal web portal, or any or all of the above. I can see many potential uses I haven’t explored myself, and I am overall very impressed with this service.
I’ve been using Dreamhost for just about 10 years now through three iterations of my own WP blog and now several other domains/sites. Their support has always rocked. When things break they dig in and take care of the problem in ways I would have never been able to handle on my own. Any problems I’ve had over the years have been resolved super fast. They are pros up and down and I never want to leave!
We’ve been absolutely delighted with the level of support we’ve received from DreamHost. It’s always prompt and to the point. Moreover it comes with a bit of light humor that so often is missing in dry online exchanges. We’ve extremely pleased with our choice of DreamHost!
I’ve been using Dreamhost for 5+ years and couldn’t be happier – their customer support is top notch! Every time I’ve done something wrong on my end, they are there to bail me out. What more could you ask for!
Wise people say that don’t put your all eggs in one Basket but to me the basket of Dreamhost seems to be too secure to putt my all eggs in it. I not only use the hosting plane but also registered at least eight domains with Dreamhost. There may be others who may have better services but honestly speaking Dreamhost never let me think ‘out of the box’. I wish and pray they remain same. I know an instance where they did not bow down under pressure to remove a domain and hosting of an organization which governments wanted to shut down. That proved that the organization believes in privacy and professionalism and does not have any political linkage. I wish it keeps that way in future as well.
I love DreamHOst DreamPress!
Really faster and perfect support I have seen. Keep it up. loved your service..
I have been using Dreamhost for 6 years or so. There are occasional problems, but they generally get them resolved quickly. When it seems to be only a problem with my service, the support folks have had me up and running fairly rapidly. A couple times the outages were for extended periods of times, but anyone who has made a living troubleshooting electrical and electronics knows that sometimes things are hard to fix. So far there has not been an outage for what I call an unrealistically long time.
Competitive pricing, user-friendly website and control panel, excellent customer service with prompt, pleasant and helpful support. I’ve only just set up an account so can’t speak for any long-term issues but have been very impressed so far and would definitely recommend.
I closed my account with them due to poor customer service and poor technical support.
Like a dream. Support is always kind and caring. I think a cpanel would be good. All other hosts I have used have it and it’s kind of making things easier.
I was somewhat disappointed in my last real-time-chat support session. One of the email addresses was misbehaving, and your support guy suggested that I delete the email address and re-enter it. I asked “Won’t that delete all of the email now in that email address’s server inbox?”
His reply was that No, you won’t lose the email because it’s an IMAP email account. Of course, deleting the email address DID delete all of the email in the inbox.
I’m also disappointed in the extremely crude server-side email filtering, which — according to the forums — has been a joke for several years. Are you guys unaware of the many SquirrelMail anti-spam add-ons?
Good hosting service especially if you read the terms of contract.
Their support is excellent. Those guys… don’t remember all their names but they are tip-top. They help and they are kind. The problem always gets solved and in a short time.
You guys are real good.
Great service! The one time I ever had a problem with my site, they responded quickly and fixed it. I recommend them to newbies all the time for the ease of setup and management.
Used for years Awesome support recently on a migration and url change issue, Well done to the DH team.
Would definitely recommend
Paul
Dreamhost was prompt about addressing my error and concern. Very solid company with outstanding customer service.
I just have a very basic website.
Dreamhost was kind enough to help me recently when I was unable to log into my account. I’m pretty sure it was my computer. They did not solve the issue, but did try and spent substantial amount of time with me.
My only complaint is it would be nice if there were a phone number for support. If you can’t log in to the site, you obviously cannot post a comment for help. Luckily I was able to contact them thru their facebook page.