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 am somewhat surprised at the lack of understanding about the hosting parameters on dreamhosts.
Perhaps it gets better.
The control panel and intent is excellent – but the support so far has a mixture of quality. It is obvious that some support has excellent skills but yet others are very poor.
The product itself seems on the face of it – excellent
mike h
I’ve joined Dreamhost recently and everything has been very smooth, the chat support always there, friendly and helpful (including on Memorial weekend). The wiki is a great resource. I find the webmail interface unpleasant and lacking features, but I do most emailing through an email management program, so it doesn’t bother me too much.
My experience with DH has been a nightmare. e-mail has been down for a week and no one bothers to update my credit card information and get me up and running again. No way to contact DH as my login is frozen and they don’t have a phone # to call to solve just such problems. Hard to believe in this day and age a company that provides such a vital service can be so incompetent and so unwilling or unable to help a long time customer.
What customer support?
They don’t have one.
You send them an email, get a reply from a robot that they received it, then sit and wait for reply.
And then, they send you a link on how to do it. Unbelievable!
What happened to calling a number, getting a US person on a phone, explaining them the problem, and have it taken care off, that is the tech support in my book, and my business.
All their free stuff is good if you are an IT expert, and do not need tech support.
Been with these guys for 10 years now. I am a Systems Engineer with HP (17 years). One thing I am NOT is a web developer but I do know when I’m getting quality support, and I’m telling you, these guys are the best in the business. I don’t believe I have ever had an issue that was actually inflicted by DH, but they have NEVER questioned me when I ask them for help. They just jump right in and help me (or without my help at all) fix the problem. You can’t go wrong with these guys, highly recommended.
With DH for over 8 years…never had any issues big enough to complain….DH rocks…have recommended to many friends.
The whole experience of getting support from Dreamhost was very smooth. I found instructions online, I followed the instructions which included emailing for support. Within a few hours Dreamhost had responded to my request.
I’ve been with DreamHost for a long time. Before that I tried several other providers, and had problems with all of them. I’ve never had any problem with DreamHost. If I have a question or need tech support, they respond quickly. I recommend them to anyone needing hosting services. And their newsletter is always fun to read!
I have had zero problems with dreamhost. Customer service over the phone and online chat are spot on. Only hiccup was an error on my part miscommunicating my needs, dreamhost quickly helped me resolve this. Mobile site, domain transfer, hosting, email all good. I manage my company and several other personal websites through dreamhost and will continue to.
Support tickets option to pay ten bucks for a call back is well worth my time.
Lots of options out there, if you need your hand held use another company. If you like to do it on your own and get help along the way,….dreamhost.
DH guys are rockstars !
I have been with DH – with different accounts – for more than 9 years now and really love the way DH has grown with more and more awesome services.
The new play with Dreamcompute is absolutely game changer and has helped us in bringing down the cost significantly.
My experience with online support was very good. Problem solved quickly.
Great service. Got my site issues resolved on the first ticket attempt. Thanks, guys!
Dreamhost has been fantastic since I moved my hosting to them a year ago. All of the few & minor problems have been almost instantly resolved in a matter of minutes using their phone or on-line chat tech support. I’m a happy camper after moving from ixWebhosting.
Thank you for your help with re-registering.
Denice
I really love hosting with you!
Keep it cool 🙂
Thank you!!!
I’ve had a great experience with Dreamhost. Yes, there are occasionally issues, but they are friendly, helpful, consistent, and best of all, competent.
I had a technical issue on Sunday evening of Memorial Day weekend and Dreamhost’s live help chat support was available and very quickly was able to resolve my issue. They have been a pleasure to work with and I would definitely recommend them for timely and accurate support.
What a mess Dream Host made of our domain name renewal, charging us for two years when we renewed our hosting but only asking for and applying payment to the second year, then demanding payment for the first year upon threat of disabling our website. Customer support blamed the mistake on me “clicking the ‘renew domain’ button twice” when renewing the hosting account, which they later recanted and continued to dun us for payment.
We will be exploring options before the hosting account is up for renewal again. Buyer beware.
I set up a site for a client using Dreamhost a few months ago and if it wasn’t for their awful email and chat support contantly giving bad advice and messing up my settings and cancelling my ssl cert by mistake, everything would have gone smoothly.
This is not a “dream” host unless maybe it referrs to their daydreaming support staff.
If you have a problem, you won’t get any real answers or attention to detail unless you escalate your ticket to someon like John whos ben there for 15 years, according to him.
They’re still training the rest of them.
We had a very very poor experience with Dreamhost as our server for our web-site. The 24 hr. real time service was a lie. It took me all day, 3 emails, and they have NO phone contact information. FaceBook was the only way I could reach someone.
Our problem never got resolved.
The switch to a new server wentt Ok apart from a memory setting not carrying over. Dreamhost fixed that promptly after I told them.
It was the Dreamhost 1-Click install that introduced me to WordPress more than 10 years ago. I’ve stuck with them ever since. Love the web panel, the support from knowledgeable people who almost always look beyond the specific question to solve the “real” problem, and the flexibility of being able to manage multiple domains for multiple accounts. And I even *always* read the monthly newsletter.
I’ve been with DreamHost for several years, and I’ve never had a problem with them. They answer any questions I have quickly and they’re very convenient to contact. They offer so much at a reasonable price. Not planning on leaving anytime soon.
I really enjoyed a long run with Dreamhost. I hosted several small business websites. Their hosting platform is easy to use, and the support is super. The only reason I dropped my account is that I ran out of paying customers. I don’t think any of my sites every went down in 10 years with Dreamhost. If you are late on a bill, they are very nice about letting you catch up. Well done!
Dreamhost is a fantastic webserver. I have been with them for years and love everything about them. Great service when needed and clear instructions on the site. Bravo.