DreamHost is one of the oldest web hosting providers and domain name registrar on the internet. It was founded in 1996 by Sage Weil, Michael Rodriguez, Josh Jones, and Dallas Bethune as New Dream Network, LLC, and began its journey in hosting websites in 1997. In these 23 years, DreamHost has served 400,000+ customers from over 100 different countries that power more than 1.5 million websites and 750,000 WordPress installations. As for its availability, DreamHost currently has data centers in 2 places, Ashburn, Virginia, and Hillsboro, Oregon. That’s why it’s ideal if your traffic comes mainly from around North America. You can also move your data centers to your preferred one. 

Why should you use DreamHost?

It’s a green hosting 

If you are trying to be more environmentally conscious, DreamHost should be considered for you. Just like Inmotion does, DreamHost has to offset the carbon footprint of their servers. It uses high efficient cooling system and processors for its infrastructure. Furthermore, it’s involved in state-level ‘clean wind’ programs to harness renewable resources. Its offices are LEED and EnergyStar-certified, and everything from lighting to HVAC systems is also energy efficient.

It offers great featured hosting plans at a cheap price

DreamHost provides various hosting plans at competitive prices. Even though it’s at cheap prices, DreamHost still offers an abundance of great features. You will get one website with a free domain name, and SSL certificate included, even an unlimited bandwidth and storage. DreamHost has its own website builder called Remixer, but they also offer access to SquareSpace, Weebly, and Wix in their app library. You’ll also be able to find Joomla, phpBB, Zen Cart, Drupal, Magento, Shopify, and Tumblr in there. In addition, DreamHost provides pre-installed WordPress. It’s pretty easy to set up on most servers with the one-click install option. 

Open Source

Dreamhost is also an OpenStack Foundation Gold Member. Its commitment to Open Source comes in the form of financial backing, coding contributions, and community leadership.

Easy-to-use interface

DreamHost uses a custom-made control panel instead of the standard cPanel. In fact, its control panel is very easy to use and beginner-friendly. From there you can manage your databases, email, billing, and websites. The WordPress editor is also just a click away.

Endorsed by WordPress and awarded by PCMag

It has quite a good reputation for its service. In fact, DreamHost has won the PCMag’s Business Choice Awards for Web Hosting Service for 5 years in a row (2014-2018). Even more, it is one of only four web hosts that WordPress itself endorses. 

What are the main features of DreamHost?

• 100% uptime guarantee in all plans
• 97-day money-back guarantee
• SSD storage for shared and VPS plans
• Free SSL certificate
• Free WordPress migration
• Unlimited domain names with over 275 extensions 
• Unlimited bandwidth, storage, and email addresses
• Cloud storage
• 1-click install for web apps (WordPress, Joomla, many more)
• Easy to use control panel 

What does DreamHost offer?

DreamHost has a complete package for all hosting services just like any other web hosting provider but with an even cheaper fee. They provide hosting services like: 

• Shared Hosting
• VPS Hosting 
• WordPress Hosting 
• Website Builder
• Dedicated Hosting 
• Cloud Hosting 

• Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is great for small personal sites. This is the most affordable hosting that DreamHost offers. In DreamHost Shared Hosting, there are 2 plans available, the Starter and the Unlimited. Both the plans include these features :

• 1 free domain registration
• Unlimited SSD storage and bandwidth
• Free SSL certificate
• Free automated WordPress migration
• 1-click installation of WordPress and WP Website Builder

The differences between the two plans are in the number of websites and email addresses. The Shared Starter only gets one website and needs to add email addresses for $1.67/ month. On the other hand, Shared Unlimited gets both an unlimited number of websites and email addresses. 

For the prices, each plan is available for a monthly, 1 year, and 3 years subscription. You can get the cheapest Shared Starter plan that costs $2.59/ month with 3 years subscription. Meanwhile, the cheapest Shared Unlimited plan is $3.95/ month with 3 years subscription.

Find out more about DreamHost’s shared hosting plans here.

• VPS Hosting

VPS hosting is great for small to medium-sized business sites that require more power and speed than shared hosting. In DreamHost VPS hosting, there are 4 plans available, Basic, Business, Professional, and Enterprise. All of the plans include these features :

• Managed performance, security, and updates 
• Unlimited bandwidth & traffic
• Unlimited domains & emails
• Free SSL certificate 
• Expandable RAM & storage
• SSD storage
• US-based VPS

The differences between these plans are the amount of RAM and SSD storage, but you are able to expand it with extra payment. 

For the price, each plan is available for a monthly, 1 year, and 3 years subscription. The cheapest VPS hosting you can get is the VPS Basic plan which costs $10.00/ month with 3 years subscription. 

Find out more about DreamHost VPS hosting plans here.

• WordPress Hosting 

WordPress hosting is great for your WordPress site if you don’t want to bother about plugin updates, backup, or security threads. There are 3 plans offered for WordPress hosting.

1. WordPress Basic 

This is the most affordable plan to get all the basics for your WordPress site. It is similar to Shared Hosting but specially designed for WordPress sites. You can choose between the WordPress Starter and WordPress Unlimited. The differences between the two are on the number of websites and email addresses. The cheapest WordPress Basic costs $2.59/ month for 3 years subscription. 

2. DreamPress

DreamPress is the managed WordPress hosting with 3 options, which are DreamPress, DreamPress Plus, and DreamPress Pro. All options include DreamHost main features plus : 

• 1-click staging
• Unlimited email & bandwidth
• On-demand + daily backup
• JetPack free pre-installed.

The differences are in the number of daily visits, SSD storage, and CDN. The cheapest DreamPress costs $12.00/ month for monthly plans. 

3. VPS WordPress

VPS WordPress is right for you who need powerful multiple WordPress sites. There are 4 options available: Basic, Business, Professional, and Enterprise. Similar to VPS Hosting, the differences are on the amount of RAM and SSD storage. You can get the cheapest VPS WordPress hosting for $10.00/ month with 3 years subscription. 

Find out more about DreamHost WordPress hosting plans here.

• Website Builder

Using the website builder, DreamHost helps you to design your website freely and easily with a drag-and-drop builder. There are 3 plans that you can choose for your website builder: Shared Starter for small sites, Shared Unlimited for larger sites and Managed WordPress for WordPress site. All plans include :

• Free domain
• WP Website Builder
• Quick-Start Inspirations Wizard
• Premium Starter Sites
• Post & Page Builder
• SEO Recommender

The difference between these plans is in the number of websites and email addresses. As for the Managed WordPress plan, your website will be managed 24/7 by DreamHost. You can get the cheapest plan which is the Shared Starter for $2.95/ month if you subscribe to pre-paid plans

Find out more about DreamHost Website Builder here.

• Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated hosting is great for you who want fast web servers with root access. These are the features that you will get for DreamHost dedicated hosting :

• Full root & shell access (SSH)
• Ubuntu Linux
• RAID 1 storage
• DDoS protection
• Unlimited bandwidth 
• Ruby Version Manager (RVM)
• OPcache
• PHP7/ Perl/ Phyton/ Ruby
• Advanced easy-to-use panel
• IPV4 and IPV6
• Node.js
• Local MySQL Server
• 24/7 tech support and server monitoring

There are 2 plans for dedicated hosting: Standard and Enhanced. The differences between these two are in the number of core processors, RAM, and HDD storage. You can get the cheapest dedicated hosting with the Standard plan that costs $149.00/ month.

Find out more about DreamHost’s dedicated hosting plans here.

• Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is right for you who want not only full root access to your web but also super-fast servers. You can get it for DreamCompute or DreamObject. DreamCompute is a DreamHost cloud computing service that you can use for creating simple cloud servers to advanced network configurations. Meanwhile, the DreamObject is only an object-based storage with virtually infinite capacity. The price starts from $0.0075/ hour.

Find out more about DreamHost Cloud Hosting here.

Pros :

• Offers month-to-month hosting 
• Plenty basic plan features
• Unlimited disc space & network transfer limit
• Green hosting 
• Custom-made control panel
• Free WordPress migration 

Cons : 

• Slow average speed times
• Average uptime
• Limited live chat support

Summary

DreamHost is one of the oldest web providers on the internet with more than 23 years of experience. It offers a complete package of hosting plans at cheap prices. For TMI, it is a green hosting that has won Best Web Hosting Service for 5 years in a row. We recommend you to use services from DreamHost especially if your traffic mainly comes from around North American. But please take note that it has a slow average loading time and has a live chat option that is only available at 5.30 AM-9.30 PM PT every day. 

References :

• DreamHost Official Website
• Wikipedia
• WPBeginner review
• Website Setup review
• Digital.com Review
• Website Planet Review