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. 
My experience with DreamHost has been terrible.
They not have phone support (unless you pay extra), so when my site went down for no reason, all I could do was send an email and wait hours for someone to get around to emailing me back. When they finally did, the email seemed very “canned” and offered solutions that either didn’t address the problem or that I couldn’t do (Like updating my plug-ins when my site was down.) They never fixed anything; I just had to wait.
When my site went down the second time, it was actually because THEY shut my site down to prevent a malicious hacking attack and didn’t bother to let me know. I had to email and tweet them several times throughout the day until I finally got an email back, again, hours later. And even then, they still didn’t fix the problem. I had to continue emailing until I finally got it sorted out. My site was down 12 hours–when all that needed to happen was for them to send me an email to make sure the hacker didn’t get in.
Completely ridiculous. Would NOT recommend.
I typically don’t write reviews but I had to write one for these guys.
I started with Host Mantis (shared hosting) and while the price and speed was fantastic, my site experienced a lot of downtime. The customer service was nothing special, but was good enough to meet the needs. I couldn’t afford to lose visitors due to the downtime so decided to switch!
After reading tons of reviews, I moved to Arvixe (shared hosting again). I quickly realized the server speed was extremely slow. I decided to cancel Arvixe the next day but they gave me one month free and offered to move me to one of their best shared servers. The performance improved but still the site was often extremely slow and again I was afraid to lose visitors. I do have to say the customer service was decent (mostly outsourced though it seems).
I wanted to move my site to a Managed VPS to improve performance. I looked around and Dream Host had fantastic reviews. I saw their prices and the same was being offered at Arvixe for twice the price or more. I decided to try Dream Host.
It’s only been a week and all I can say is I have nothing but all positive things to say about Dream Host. The server speed, uptime, and the customer service have all been fantastic. They helped me migrate my sites and getting issues resolved on the support chat was a breeze! The only thing to keep in mind is that their web-panel is different than the standard cpanel so there’s a bit of a learning curve but hey if you’re tech-savvy, it shouldn’t be a problem. Plus, the Dream Host wiki is a blessing and has tons of useful information. Keep up the great work Dream Host! I will recommend Dream Host to anyone. I would give them 5 stars plus rating!!
I paid for a VPS which was relatively cheap (15 USD/month) only to discover that my databases were still in the shared hosting which was causing my site to be slow and go down, when I contacted DH they informed I needed to buy another VPS for just the MySQL service and 1GB of RAM costs 60 USD per month. Which I have problems to afford and I was not aware of that when I decided to contract the VPS service.
The support is not very good either.
On the other hand I like the Dream Panel it’s very easy and cool, my site usually works well now, but overall I am not a satisfied Dreamhost client anymore.
I had a very bad experience.
I had 4 domains fully hosted, but one of them couldn’t deliver emails to a particular domain, receiving an automatic response from a RBL list. This client needed to deliver those emails urgently.
I followed all the steps that DreamHost gives us to solve the problem,explaining the importance and urgency of the issue, and also started comunicating with the RBL provider who was blocking those emails.
I had absolutely no answer from DreamHost, they moved my case, and 3 months later i receive an email that says: “How well did DreamHost Tech Support serve you?”
Well, DreamHost, you didn’t serve me at all, thanks to you I’ve lost that client, along with a perfect good reputation. Good work! suckers.
Switching to DreamHost has been the best decision we have made in regards to our hosting providers. Top notch service and performance!
A recent technical support chat has me questioning my affiliation with DreamHost.
After some troubleshooting on their end we were told that everything was working fine on the host side and that we should re-install the Zencart software.
Instead, we back-tracked and found an error in our meta-tag.php file that caused our entire site to display as a blank white page. Giving us no access to the admin panel either.
As it turns out, we were missing an apostrophe in our site tagline!!
Chad
I’ve been with Dreamhost for a few years and have never had any issues till now. I requested support and asked the person to look into my domain’s file to try to help me. I was told they would look into the issue, but 24 hours later I received an email from them saying they’ve found “multiple violations of their policies” on my domains. They pointed out very strict terms of service which state Dreamhost is ONLY for website files. Any files not related to the website you have to pay extra to store and they demanded we remove them from our site. So, you pay them for file hosting, and they choose what files you can and cannot upload. So it’s not really your space, although you pay for it… nice. They offer “unlimited space” but won’t let you use it for anything beyond the website itself.
I have used Dreamhost for many years and have been very pleased with their service. I had an issue the other day and they immediately responded; their service was outstanding.
Dreamhosts support process is TERRIBLE!! There is no phone number, they will only work with you via email or Live Chat. I only get tickets resolved when I use the Live Chat option. If I use the email option, I never hear from anyone until 2-3 days later. And then their standard support answer is, “Here is our wiki…” The site seems to have a great idea for WordPress hosting, but the support is God awful. Heck, a user cannot even attach a screen capture to an email sent into the support system!! What kind of TECH support system, does not allow attachments?? Hopefully my issues with them will be resolved soon, so I don’t have to contact their support anymore!! 🙂
I’ve been with Dreamhost for ten years now. It’s had it’s ups and downs. They’re not perfect, but then again what is? I can say with certainty they concentrate on providing excellent webhosting and they are accountable. Most of the time it’s me screwing up and they always respond in a prompt professional manner, solve my problems and let me be otherwise. They don’t inundate me with offers and crap I don’t want, they just provide excellent webhosting. I can use a shell account to work, love that. I hope we can be together another ten years. Dreamhost is excellent. Period.
I had an emergency, a new computer, and was away from home. Waited in line for DH chat Support and problem resolved within minutes after that. Thank you…as always you are the best!
Dealing with DreamHost’s “support” is like Gods way of testing your patience and you better have plenty of it because these clowns don’t have phone support! A web hosting company with NO WEB SUPPORT. They fail to mention that little gem when you sign up.
I purchased a web hosting bundle for a year with these guys – and it’s been a nightmare from day one. I had a simple Word Press site – literally ONE PAGE that took forever to load. When I was able to finally get ahold of someone they told me the WP needed to be optimized. One page! I finally just sprung for Squarespace and redirected my DNS and haven’t had problems since with hosting
I opened a ticket a WEEEK ago because their email services via IMAP lost all my previous emails and I’ve been gettin boucebacks. Their support team are masters of passing the buck. After waiting nearly 24 hours I get this:
Dreamhost customer since 2005, that’s 10 years as of writing. Why so long? Because the ratio features/price is unbeaten, because support is always very fast and reliable. Overall it’s been 10 good years.
A host with a different panel of the others I’ve used, I enjoyed the possibility of giving access via ssh to my server, because this way end up having greater ease to edit files directly from the server without suffering accessing via ftp, changing and playing files the server again.
However not everything is perfect, do not have the possibility of several FTP servers accessing the same files turned out to be a limiting factor for some of my projects. =/
Our experience with customer support made DreamHost’s service unusable for us. While they were courteous, they were unwilling or unable to help us resolve our initial issues upon setting up service and we were completely unable to get our website started. We will need to cancel our DreamHost service and initiate a new service with another host at some expense to us because DreamHost will still charge us for our domain registration at a rate of more than half of the annual hosting fee, a service our new host would provide for free and a waste of money for our company.
Our webservice was completely unable to navigate to the DreamHost hosted website and customer support was unwilling to provide the information we needed to get this resolved. We could not justify spending any more time (already nearly a week of emails and trial and error) to resolve this issue ourselves to use a service that provides us no support for future issues.
This is very disappointing to me because I have used DreamHost in the past to host a national website and have recommended them highly to clients and friends. This experience clearly changes my opinion of their service. This is very inconvenient because DreamHost’s packages and services are the best fit for our company within our budget.
In my opinion the LiveChat is awesome. As I am abeginner with wordpress I have made use of it a couple of times. Everytime I had a very friendly person, normally in minutes, even if sometimes I had to wait a little (which I consider normal), and my issue was everytime solved rapidly! Thank you very much for this awesome service.
I’ve got nothing but praise for Dreamhost. Once you get to know the back end user interface – which is very different from a typical control panel – it is a pleasure to use and offers a load of extra features. Whenever I email support I get a competent answer within 1-2 hours; I’ve started to use support chat, too, and typically get a response within two minutes. Really awesome!
I’ve been with Dreamhost for 12 years and they’ve been mostly excellent. Any issue is usually resolved within 24 hours and the tech support team aren’t shy with details. Highly reccommened
I have been a happy Dreamhost customer for 7 years now. Whenever I have an issue their support team always provides a quick reply or the tech in their live chat (for emergencies) is always super helpful. I can’t imagine ever using another hosting company!
I´ve been using Dream Host services for 8 years now and I am pretty satisfied with the whole thing. Thank you guys!
As always, fast, helpful and accurate support!
As always, fast and accurate support!
I enjoy your very good service. I found things a bit hard having to put everything in place for the first time. I receive very helpful email replies.
Thanks Philip
I did not need or require anything special from Dream Host so we have been easy clients for them. I wasn’t able to get help to use their email and take advantage from the other “benefits” they offer us. I am not a Techi, so I don’t understand their lingo. They need to realize this.
Only thing, just now that I’m trying to close my account, I cannot do it now but I have to wait for my actual anniversary date. I can’t help but think this is so I forget and another two years get charges to my credit card. We have such busy and stressed lives that the possibility I’ll forget is great and they bet on it.
I’ve recently signed on with Dreamhost, and I’ve enjoyed the experience. Their Control Panel is straightforward and easy to use. Online support is fast and responsive. I look forward to creating many websites with the help of Dreamhost.