DreamHost was founded in 1997 and is one of the industry’s oldest web hosting companies on the internet. It has become a famous brand amongst developers, designers, and digital marketers.

Throughout the years, DreamHost has grown to host over 1.5 million websites, and it now has over 400,000 consumers located across more than 100 countries. DreamHost hosting is a fantastic provider that offers excellent performance, reliable support, generous unlimited storage, bandwidth policy, and a comprehensive feature set for competitive prices that cater to a wide range of personal and business web hosting requirements.

If you’re looking for a high-quality hosting company at a low cost, DreamHost might be the right fit!

Is Dreamhost The Right Host For You?

This hosting provider is one of the oldest and most popular companies on the market, and there are various DreamHost reviews you can find on the internet. I was pleased when I was offered the opportunity to write this expert review because I had never had any experience with this well-known provider.

I’ve tested many hosting providers, but DreamHost’s various provided features and the promise of a 100% uptime guarantee captured my attention. And this was an excellent opportunity to check if they were true to their words.

So, is DreamHost the web host that fits your requirements? Let’s dive into my DreamHost brand review to find out!

Here Is How We Review:

1. The first step in doing an expert review is choosing a hosting plan. We go for the most affordable plan that covers all of the necessary features and allows us to assess the web host’s capabilities at its most basic level.
2. The next step is to review each feature the hosting provider offers. Meanwhile, our professionals evaluate the provider’s performance and reliability.
3. We carefully evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the hosting provider, considering whether the cost is acceptable and the quality of the service given. We also take into consideration how available and helpful their customer support is.
4. After thoroughly reviewing every hosting service feature, we publish a written expert review, which we update throughout the year.
5. When establishing the total score that demonstrates the provider’s quality and dependability, we consider dozens of customer reviews.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Cons:

DreamHost Prices & Plans – 2022

DreamHost offers a comprehensive range of hosting services with many advanced features.

DreamHost provides Shared Hosting, WordPress Hosting, Managed WordPress, VPS Hosting, Cloud Hosting, Dedicated Servers, WooCommerce, Domains, Email Hosting, Website Builder, and Pro Services. Its plans are accustomed to meeting its customers’ demands, each plan varying in price and features. The plans are ideal for a wide range of customers, from beginners to professionals.

DreamHost offers two Shared Hosting plans, Shared Starter and Shared Unlimited.

The Shared Starter comes for $2.59 a month and supports a single website, while the Shared Unlimited comes for $3.95 a month and provides unlimited websites. Both plans provide unlimited traffic, pre-installed WordPress, Free Automated WordPress Migrations, an advanced and easy-to-use cPanel, the new WP Website Builder, fast SSD Storage, and a free SSL Certificate.

You can purchase these plans monthly or for one or three years.

DreamHost offers two WordPress plans:

• WordPress Starter - It’s a great WordPress plan with an entry-level price for new sites. This plan is $1.99 a month.
• WordPress Unlimited - It’s an excellent plan for multiple WordPress websites and anyone who wants professional email hosting with a personal domain. This plan is $2.99 a month.

You can purchase both of these plans monthly or for one or three years.

DreamHost’s Managed WordPress hosting plans offer customized servers just for WordPress. The provider offers three Managed WordPress hosting plans: DreamPress, DreamPress Plus, and DreamPress Pro.

The DreamPress plan is $12 a month, built for approximately 100k monthly visitors, and offers 30GB SSD Storage and free Jetpack pre-installed. The DreamPress Plus is $24 a month and is built for approximately 300k monthly visitors. This plan has included Professional Jetpack, 60GB SSD storage, and unlimited CDN. The DreamPress Pro plan offers 24/7 priority WordPress support, has Professional Jetpack included, 120GB SSD storage, and unlimited CDN at $79.95 a month. These plans include unlimited Email, unmetered bandwidth, 1-Click staging, pre-installed  SSL Certificate, on-demand, and daily backups, free automated WordPress migrations, 24/7 WP Website Builder, and WordPress support.

You can purchase these plans monthly or yearly.

The VPS hosting plans are great for any size website. DreamHost provides four VPS Hosting plans: VPS Basic, VPS Business, VPS Professional, and VPS Enterprise.

The VPS Basic plan is excellent for new and small websites and comes with 1 GB Ram and 30 GB SSD storage at $15 a month. The VPS Business plan is built for small businesses and comes with 2 GB Ram and 60 GB SSD storage at $30 a month. The VPS Professional plan is excellent for resource-intensive sites and comes with 4 GB Ram and 120 GB SSD storage at $60 a month. The VPS Enterprise plan comes with 8 GB Ram and 240 GB SSD storage at $120 a month. All four plans come with unlimited websites and traffic, free SSL Certificate(s), and unlimited email with your domain.

You can purchase the VPS Hosting plans for a month, one, or three years.

DreamHost provides two fully-managed Dedicated Server Hosting plans: Standard and Enhanced.

The Standard plan is ideal for beginners. The Intel Xeon standard servers have 4-core processors to handle all of your sites’ visitors. The plan also comes with 4 GB RAM and a 1 TB HDD at $169 a month. The Enhanced plan has an Intel Xeon 12-core processor, up to 16GB of RAM, and 2TB of space. This server can handle multiple high-traffic sites easily and is $299 a month.

You can purchase the Dedicated plans monthly or yearly.

DreamHost’s WooCommerce hosting plans offer fast, secure, and optimized Woocommerce. The provider offers three WooCommerce hosting plans: DreamPress, DreamPress Plus, and DreamPress Pro.

The DreamPress plan is perfect to launch your WooCommerce store while still having plenty of room to grow your business. The plan is built for approximately 100k monthly visitors and offers 30GB SSD Storage and pre-installed free Jetpack at $12 a month. The DreamPress Plus is excellent for established WooCommerce stores with higher traffic and storage requirements and can handle approximately 300k monthly visitors. This plan has included Jetpack Professional, unlimited CDN, and 60GB SSD Storage for $24 a month. The DreamPress Pro plan has a high-capacity architecture for sites demanding extreme performance. The plan offers 24/7 priority WordPress support, has Professional Jetpack included, 120GB SSD storage, and unlimited CDN at $79.95 a month. These plans include unlimited email, unmetered bandwidth, pre-installed WooCommerce, Storefront Theme, 1-Click staging, pre-installed  SSL Certificate, on-demand, and daily backups, free automated WordPress migrations, 24/7 WP Website Builder, and WordPress support.

You can purchase these plans monthly or yearly.

You can run a DreamHost Cloud server for as long as you need and only get charged up to 25 days in a given month. DreamHost offers three types of Cloud Hosting plans. The first is ideal for tinkering and has a 512MB RAM server and one vCPU for $4.50 a month. The second one is ideal for websites and comes with a 2GB RAM server and one vCPU for $12 a month. And the third plan is ideal for databases and has an 8GB RAM server and four vCPU for $48 a month. All accounts come with 100 GB of block storage, 80 GB SSD disk, and unrestricted bandwidth.

Features & Benefits

DreamHost has some excellent features that distinguish this web provider from the rest, and every user can benefit from them. Let’s look at some of DreamHost’s unique features and benefits I discovered while researching for this expert review.

1. Useful Tools

DreamHost makes it simple to get started online, whether you’re a blogger, a small company owner, or own a more significant business. Free domain, SSL certificate, professional email address, a website builder, and privacy protection are all provided by DreamHost.

To ensure that your site will perform at its most capacity, DreamHost provides support for PHP 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3, Canned CGI Scripts, Full CGI Access, Server Side Includes (SSI), Subversion Repository (SVN), IPv6 Support, and Secure Shell (SSH) Access. DreamHost provides an advanced, easy-to-use Panel that will give you access to everything you need to power your Website. You can easily create new email accounts, Encrypt SSL, forward domains, add users, and install WordPress in seconds.

2. Global Presence

DreamHost is California-based and has grown to host over 1.5 million websites, and it now has over 400,000 consumers located across more than 100 countries worldwide.

3. Security

Each shared hosting plan from DreamHost comes with a free SSL certificate. If you run an e-commerce site, an SSL may make your visitors feel more secure. In addition, you get free domain privacy.

DreamHost offers Malware Remover, mod_security, and its Nginx offerings. Malware Remover is a tool for detecting and removing malware from your websites. Mod_security is the industry-standard web application firewall for apache. The Nginx offerings include http/2 support. You can benefit from lua-resty-waf, the web application firewall for Nginx built on OpenResty.

DreamHost also offers DreamShield Protection, which checks your site regularly to monitor its reputation and find harmful code, out-of-date software, broken permissions, and other issues. Additional security options found in the CPanel include an easy-to-find link for updating the .htaccess file, Cron Jobs, SSH, and SFTP access, the most recent PHP version, and Multi-Factor-Authentication.

4. Regular Backups

DreamHost will automatically create a daily backup of your site. In addition, you can create an additional manual backup once a day. DreamHost will store the automatic and manual backups for up to two weeks. You can also access the option to restore a backup within your Control Panel.

5. Email

Having a professional Email will help you manage your email flow like a professional. DreamHost provides a professional email hosting service, and you have one Email hosting plan available. You can purchase the plan monthly or yearly.

6. Website Builder

DreamHost offers many website building options, providing three WordPress + Website Builder plans. Their Website Builder is an easy Drag-and-Drop Builder, and it is an excellent choice for building any website you need. You have access to endless designs and plugins to choose from, and these plans will help you simplify getting started and make it easier to edit and manage your Website as it grows.

* Learn more about the best website builders on the market

Performance

Every provider is different, but the ideal one is the one that provides 100% when it comes to uptime. Every host on the internet guarantees a 100% uptime, but not every guarantee is met.

1. Speed - SSDs Are Faster Than HDDs

DreamHost provides fast Solid State Storage (SSD). With the SSDs, your Website, caching, and database queries will be faster. The SSDs are approximately 200% faster than HDDs.

In addition, DreamHost’s servers are designed with optimum WordPress performance to get the best configurations for your Website, automatic updates, and one-click installs.

2. Uptime – A 100% Uptime Guarantee

DreamHost guarantees 100% uptime on all of its hosting plans. If you experience any downtime, you will get a credit of one day’s fees for every hour of downtime, up to a maximum of 10% of the monthly fee. Multiple data center sites, redundant cooling, emergency generators, and regular monitoring are all part of the company’s high-tech infrastructure. These are specifically intended to keep your Website up and running 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

3. Loading Time - Closer Data Center - Faster Loading Speed

DreamHost delivered an adequate load time. It has two data centers, an East Coast facility in Virginia and one near Portland, Oregon, and they cover the East and West of the US. The server will load faster if it is closer to the data center. So you need to choose the one closest to you if you want lightning-fast loading speeds.

Level Of Support

DreamHost offers an extensive Knowledge Base divided into three categories: Getting Started, Announcements, and General Hosting Topics.

DreamHost features popular topics from its site, such as Security/Policies, Domain Registrations, Troubleshooting, etc.

DreamHost sets itself apart from other providers by offering its Academy of 42 Premium WordPress Tutorials. These skillfully written instructions, pictures, and videos may help you quickly and easily understand the platform, even if you have no prior expertise.

If you don’t have a DreamHost account, you can use its ticketing system. You can choose from Sales, Billing, Tech Support, or Other departments.

If you have an account with DreamHost, you can access contact support from the Control Panel.

DreamHost offers a great money-back guarantee. If you have a shared hosting plan, you can receive a refund within the first 97 days of your purchase. But, if you have a DreamPress plan, you can get a refund for the first 30 days.

Let’s check how DreamHost’s support works.

Firstly, you should select the topic concerning your issue. You can go for Account Management, Billing, Sales, Professional Services, Websites, Email, etc. Then, it would be best if you chose the domain with which you have an issue. DreamHost also asks for your level of expertise, so they can better assist you.

Next is the Subject. DreamHost automatically offered me two options: Account Activation or Refund, and I went for the second one. You can explain your issue, attach files, or request a callback.

After you fill in the information, you can choose to submit a ticket or chat with an agent. So, I chose to contact an agent.

When I clicked on chat with an agent, I received the following message.

The agent responded within seconds and was very helpful. The agent offered to help me further, asking about the problem with my account.

The live chat agent told me that I needed to use the ticketing system for refunds.

Your recent messages can also be found in Customer Support in the Control Panel.

User Friendly

During my testing for this DreamHost review, I discovered that the provider is quite simple. Their custom control panel is simple to use and makes it easy to manage your web hosting. Beginners and experts will find cPanel straightforward, practical, and simple.

DreamHost also provides an extensive Knowledge Base, and you can get help through tickets, email, or live chat 24/7.

1. Creating an Account with DreamHost

Setting up a new DreamHost account is straightforward. You need to choose a hosting service and a plan that meets your requirements. Then you should enter your information, select a payment option, and complete the registration process. Your account will be up and running within seconds.

2. Creating or Managing a Domain

Installing and managing a domain with Namecheap is easy. If you already have a domain, the transfer process is straightforward, and DreamHost provides comprehensive instructions to help you through the process.

On the other hand, if you don’t have a domain, DreamHost offers more than 400 domains from which you can choose.

3. Installing WordPress

DreamHost makes installing WordPress an easy process. The provider utilizes a straightforward point-and-click installation method. DreamHost also offers free, automated WordPress migrations.

Step By Step Walkthrough – DreamHost

Once you visit DreamHost’s Website, you can find everything organized within the Menu. You can find WordPress, Hosting, Websites, Domains, Email, Pro Services, and its Academy in the Menu.

In the WordPress tab, you can access Shared, Email, Managed WordPress with staging, catching, and on-demand backups, WooCommerce, VPS, and Dedicated Hosting for WordPress.

You have access to Shared, VPS, Dedicated, and Cloud Hosting in the Hosting tab.

The next tab is Website, and here DreamHost provides WP Website Builder and Custom Web Design.

You can find over 400 TLDs in the Domain tab for your business.

In addition, DreamHost anonymizes your domain’s WHOIS registration details for free.

In the Email tab, DreamHost provides Email hosting and a Google Workspace where you can work with your team no matter where they’re located.

DreamHost offers additional features in the Pro Services tab. This section gives you access to Design, Marketing, Website Management, and Custom Web Development Services. DreamHost also offers Custom Web Design, SEO Marketing, and Social Media Marketing to help you increase the performance of your Website.

So now, let’s purchase a plan!

I went for Shared Hosting. As I mentioned before, DreamHost offers two Shared Hosting plans: Shared Starter and Shared Unlimited. I chose the Shared Starter plan, the more affordable option, because I want to see the provider’s performance with its essential features.

Suppose you purchase one of the Shared Hosting plans. In that case, you can benefit from Unlimited MySQL Databases, Subversion Repository (SVN), Server Side Includes (SSI), Support for PHP 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3, DreamHost Control Panel, and Full Unix Shell. You get access to Raw Log Files, Crontab Access, Full CGI Access, Canned CGI Scripts, Reseller & Sub Accounts, Secure Shell (SSH) Access, IPv6 Support, Rails, Python, Perl Support, and Unlimited SFTP Users as well.

When making my purchase, I noticed that DreamHost doesn’t offer a free domain in this plan, which didn’t satisfy me much.

I proceeded to Sign up. Next, you can change the language from English to Spanish or ask to contact an agent by selecting the chat now button.

Firstly, you need to choose a Domain. You can register a new domain, use your existing one, or choose a domain later.

I already have a domain, so I chose to transfer my domain.

The next step is payment.

You need to enter your Card Details, Billing Information and perform the Account Setup.

If you scroll down, DreamHost automatically adds some features to your card. However, you can uncheck the boxes.

Some of DreamHost’s additional features are free Pre-Install WordPress, DreamShield Protection, DreamHost SEO Toolkit, DreamHost Email, and Google Workspace.

When you have set up everything according to your needs, you can check your order in the box on the right.

The last thing you need to do is click on Submit Order. And there it is, you’ve completed setting up your DreamHost account!

Afterward, DreamHost welcomes you and informs you that you will receive an email with instructions on how to complete the domain transfer.

Using and Managing Your Website on DreamHost

Since the setup process takes only a few minutes, you get access and can manage your site almost immediately.

You can find the cPanel menu on the left side of the screen. The Menu is divided into eight sections: Home, Websites, Domains, WordPress, Mail, Billing & Account, Support, and More.

Home

You can access the options to build your Website, free migrations, and pro services in the Home tab.

Build Website consists of WordPress, Email and Productivity Apps, the File Manager, and MySQL Database.

The Free Migration tab will take you to the Automated WordPress Migration Plugin. DreamHost gives straightforward instructions for the process. You can follow the step-by-step guide or ask the support team for additional assistance.

In the Pro Services section, you can find the Paid Migration Service or Upgrade to Managed WordPress.

Websites

In the Websites tab, you can access four sections: Manage Websites, Files, MySQL Databases, and Secure Certificates.

If you access the Manage section, you can find many options regarding your Website, Hosting, and DNS.

The Website tab will take you to Manage Your Site covering Files (SFTP) and Database (MySQL).

You can also modify PHP. DreamHost recommends using the 7.4 FastCGI, but you can also switch to PHP 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 8.0 CGI, or Fast CGI.

You can also register a domain, manage DNS records, or change your WordPress site to run under a different domain name.

In the security section, you can add SSL/TLS Certificates or the DreamShield Malware Removal.

Additionally, DreamHost lets you get Email or Google Workspace or its SEO Toolkit to increase website traffic.

Following the Manage Websites section, you can find the Files section, where you can access your Website’s files through a web-based FTP client or create/manage user credentials for use with a third-party file management client.

In the MySQL Databases section, you can create a New MySQL Database or restore one if you’ve deleted it before it gets purged from the recycle bin.

Scrolling down, you can find your Current MySQL Databases. Here, you can add a user, restore DB, Modify or Delete it.

The last section in Websites is Secure Certificates. Here, you can see any certificates you have. Because I don’t have any, DreamHost offers me to add the Standalone Sectigo DV Certificate.

Domains

You can find the following sections in Domains: Manage Domains, Registrations, Reg. Transfer and One-click Installs.

You can add hosting to a domain or sub-domain or register an entirely new domain in the Manage Domains section. You can access DNS, WebFTP, or UniqueIP, edit, upgrade, or remove your web hosting. You can also manage the security and email features.

If you click on DNS, you can manage DNS records using the DreamHost nameservers.

In addition, you can add records to your domain.

You can also get a Unique IP. DreamHost offers two plans: a monthly one and an annual one. You can also add an IPv6 address to your domain.

You can either search for a domain name or manage those you’ve already registered in the Registrations section.

Moving on to Domain Transfers, DreamHost explains the procedure, and at the bottom of the page, you can also find your pending transfers, if you have any.

The last section of Domains is One-Click Installs, and here you can manage your applications.

WordPress

The WordPress tab covers the one-click installs and Managed WordPress sections. I have already explained the first section. The Managed WordPress section provides the option to upgrade to DreamPress, cloud-powered, or fully-managed WordPress hosting.

DreamPress has One-Click Staging, Built-In Caching, Bulletproof Backups, and a Managed Cloud Platform.

Mail

In the Mail tab, you can manage Email, access Webmail, Custom MX, Announce Lists, Anti-spam, Discussion Lists, Message Filters, and Autoresponders.

Billing & Account

The Billing & Account tab gives you access to Manage Account, Account Privileges, Privacy Settings, Manage Payments, View Invoices, Security, Backup your Account, Bandwidth Usage, and Disk Usage.

Support

In the Support tab, you can connect with DreamHost customer support.

More

The More tab gives you access to SSH Keys, Cron Jobs, Htaccess/WebDAV, Block Spiders, Proxy, and Site Statistics.

Add Products

Below the Menu tab, you can add products. Here, DreamHost offers you Managed WordPress, Dedicated Server, Cloud Servers, VPS, Google Workspace, Remixer, and SEO Toolkit.

Conclusion: Do We Recommend DreamHost?

Yes, we do! DreamHost offers very diverse plans, which are likely to meet your demands. Even at the most basic level, it’s a cost-effective service with excellent features.

Based on our research for this DreamHost brand review and considering other DreamHost reviews on the internet, I can state that this provider is excellent. It offers incredible uptime and speed and advanced security features.

DreamHost Hosting provides a straightforward Control Panel that is beginner-friendly. The provider also offers a fantastic array of security-enhancing tools, such as Malware Remover, mod_security, SSL certificate, Cron Jobs, SSH, and SFTP access, Multi-Factor-Authentication, and a 97-day money-back guarantee. You can also benefit from the Website Builder, SSDs, or free domains (except in the monthly plans).

Regarding DreamHost’s customer support, their Knowledge Base is excellent. However, the company could improve customer support because even though their agents are beneficial, the live chat has limited work hours, and they don’t provide phone support.