DreamHost Review 2023 (Pricing, Plans, and Features)

For over two decades, DreamHost has been providing high-quality and affordable web hosting to millions of customers. Since its inception, it has become one of the leading titan companies in the industry and is host to over 1.5 million websites worldwide. 

DreamHost has everything both a beginner and a professional will need to get started building a website online. 

If you’re planning on getting their hosting services but aren’t quite sure they’re the company you need, our DreamHost Review (2023) will help you decide whether to invest in it or not.  

Let’s jump right into it! 

About DreamHost

DreamHost is based in Los Angeles, California, and was founded by Dallas Bethune et al., in 1996. They started hosting customer websites in May of 1997. As of 2016, they have been home to about 200+ employees and have close to 2 million customers worldwide. 

Today, DreamHost has expanded to different types of hosting services including related services such as site-building, domain registration, marketing services, and design services. 

How to build a site with DreamHost? Check out this video:

Pros and Cons of DreamHost

No web hosting provider can claim 100% perfection.

Before you make a final decision, let’s take a quick look at some of DreamHost’s pros and cons.

Pros of Using DreamHost

The great thing about DreamHost is that it offers clients a lot of unlimited features, like free website migrations, SSL certificates, daily backups, and more. 

Image via DreamHost

A few other benefits users can gain are:

You can cancel anytime with month-to-month hosting

Unlike most providers that bill you on a yearly basis, DreamHost bills you once every month, so you can opt to cancel anytime you want. 

They also give you a 97-day money-back guarantee to allow you more time to really get to know their services. 

Most providers, like Bluehost or SiteGround, will only give you a 30-day money-back guarantee. HostGator, on the other hand, will offer you 45 days.

As you can see, DreamHost offers one of the longest money-back guarantees out there.  

Impressive basic plan features

DreamHost gives you everything you need to build and launch your website. From unlimited bandwidth and storage to automated backups — whether you’re a professional or a complete beginner, DreamHost always has your back! 

Image via DreamHost

Note: some of these features are not included in the basic plan. 

Provides green hosting services

DreamHost is one of the many web hosting companies that are striving to minimize their carbon footprints as much as possible. 

This is why their offices are LEED and EnergyStar-certified, plus everything from their lighting to HVAC systems is also energy efficient.

Cons of Using DreamHost

Despite being feature-rich and affordable, DreamHost does have a few drawbacks that users need to consider before availing of DreamHost’s services. 

Slow average loading speed

Loading time is an important factor to consider when choosing a web host. Not only does it affect a website’s conversion and bounce rates, but it also affects its overall SEO and Google rankings. 

Image via Pingdom

Unfortunately for DreamHost, their current speed of 1,836 ms (August 2023) puts them at the bottom end of hosts we’ve reviewed.  

They also don’t offer the best uptime, averaging at about 99.98% (August 2023).

Take note that your site speed also slows down the more multimedia content you put in it. So if you’re website is going to be video, music, or photo-heavy, then DreamHost’s basic plan might not be the ideal web host for such types of sites. 

Limited live chat support.

DreamHost promises you assistance from experienced “in-house experts.” But once you open their live-chat feature, you’ll find a series of preset questions, some of which may be related to your problem, but some may not.

Once you’re finally through with identifying your problem from the list of preset questions, it can take a while before a customer support agent can assist you. 

Also, the live chat feature is only available at a limited time during the day (3:00 AM-9:30 PM PT). So if you’re encountering problems during the middle of the night, then your only option is the ticketing service via email. 

Expensive Monthly Plans

The affordable prices you see here are starting prices for first-time registrations and for 3-year plans. This means that you can only take advantage of DreamHost’s affordable plans when you just register.  

Moreover, you are locked to a 3-year subscription. For most people, 3 years is a very long time, especially when you are not sure if you want to stay with the same hosting provider after a year. 

And when your first term has ended, you will then be charged the regular fee, which is almost twice as much as the introductory price. Renewal on the Shared Starter plan costs $5.99 a month. 

So consider this when you’re evaluating the time you plan on staying with DreamHost and the affordability of the whole package. 

DreamHost Performance

With an average loading speed of 1,836 ms (August 2023) and an uptime of 99.98% (August 2023), we have to admit, DreamHost isn’t the most reliable when it comes to performance. 

They are, however, feature-rich — which a lot of users are after these days. 

For example, once you sign up for their Shared Started plan, you’ll get to enjoy:

• A free domain
• Unlimited traffic
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Fast SSD storage
• Pre-installed WordPress
• Free SSL certificates
• 24/7 customer support
• WP Website Builder
•  Free Automated WordPress Migrations

Image via DreamHost

DreamHost Plans and Features

DreamHost offers five types of hosting: Shared, VPS, WordPress, Dedicated, and Cloud Hosting. 

Let’s look at each of their hosting plans. 

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is essentially when multiple websites share and store data on a single server. It’s perfect for beginner blogs and websites that don’t require as much support as bigger entities. 

DreamHost offers two (2) types of Shared Hosting plans: 

Compared to other shared hosting plans, DreamHost offers great value-for-money. For only a few dollars a month, you can already get all the necessary features to get started. 

Virtual Private Servers (VPS) Hosting

VPS Hosting is one of the most popular hosting services, and for good reasons. Even though you’re still sharing a single server with other users, with VPS, you get dedicated resources that give your website more privacy, security, and stability. 

DreamHost has four (4) VPS packages you can choose from: 

Image via DreamHost

Each plan provides you with fast SSD storage, free SSL certificates, unlimited email accounts, unlimited websites, and unlimited traffic.

WordPress Hosting

Using WordPress to build your websites? 

DreamHost comes highly recommended by WordPress.org!

Whether you’re starting a blog, a small business, or planning to get some e-commerce action, you can undoubtedly benefit from DreamHost’s series of WordPress Hosting plans. 

Here’s a few of them: 

Image via DreamHost

Dedicated Server Hosting

If you have a high-traffic website, Dedicated Hosting is something you’d want to look into. It gives you full custody to an entire server and helps enhance your website’s speed and performance, too. 

DreamHost has two (2) types of Dedicated Server Hosting plans: Standard and Enhanced. Both come with the following default features:

• RAID 1 Storage

• Root Access

• Local MySQL Database Server

• Ubuntu

• 100% Network Uptime Guarantee

• 24x7 Tech Support & Server Monitoring

• DDoS Protection

To learn more about their Dedicated Hosting options, you can visit their website, here. 

Cloud Hosting

Cloud Hosting is a little like VPS hosting, except that instead of using a single server, you use clusters that run in the cloud. 

When one server is busy, the cloud automatically redirects your traffic to a different server that is less busy. This results in lesser downtimes. 

DreamHost offers two (2) Cloud Hosting: DreamCompute and Dream Objects. 

To learn more about these plans, visit the DreamHost website.

DreamHost Security and Customer Support

DreamHost does its best to keep its clients safe and supported. From malware to DDoS attacks, DreamHost has taken every necessary precaution to protect users from threats. 

For instance, DreamShield Malware Remover, an in-house software that DreamHost designed, was made to protect their client’s websites and can be bought as an add-on to any of DreamHost’s hosting plans. 

Other security services clients can enjoy are free domain privacy, free SSL certificates, mod_security, and more. 

Image via DreamHost

As we’ve mentioned earlier, DreamHost’s live-chat support isn’t the most helpful tool in their armory. However, there are other ways you can ask them for help. 

You can send them an email explaining your issue/concern. You can also visit their Knowledge Base to see if you can find a solution to your problem there. 

If those options still don’t help, you can also visit their Discussion Forums, where users often exchange solutions and answers with each other. 

Do We Recommend DreamHost? 

Although their stats haven’t been looking so good the past months, they still showed a lot of promise not too long ago. 

So, yes, we do recommend their services. Especially to those who are just starting. 

Affordability is one of the major factors that you should be thinking about when you’re launching a website. And DreamHost has one of the most affordable prices among all providers. 

Moreover, it’s great for beginning websites to have unlimited bandwidth and disk space to make the most of their first few years online. 

We hope this review has helped you clear away the fog from your decision. 

Good luck!