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Dreamhost Review 20 out of 100 1 user ratings

Dreamhost is one of the top 15 shared web host on the web, hosting nearly 1 million domain names as reported by independent third party analysts. If we exclude domain registrars who act as hosts and domain parking service, Dreamhost is probably the biggest specialist shared host on earth.

Dreamhost Features

Dreamhost oversells, just like most other hosting companies do these days. You get more space and bandwidth than you need, so for most web sites with reasonable traffic won't have any issue with Dreamhost. MySQL databases, Email accounts and almost any other resource you need is available in plenty or unlimited.

Dreamhost uses their proprietary control panel which may not be appreciated by webmasters who are used to Plesk or cPanel. To be fair with them, the control panel is simple and easy to use. Control panel even supports script installers just like Fantastico with cPanel. Unless you are very picky on the control panel or want to use advanced features like site transfer with cPanel, Dreamhost panel is going to meet your needs.

Dreamhost Coupon

User the following coupons to get great discounts from Dreamhost.

For monthly Billing:
Use Coupon Code: FreeIPandSetup
You get: Free set up (normally $51, for monthly billing) and a dedicated IP address(charged $30)

For Yearly or Longer Contract:
Use Coupon Code: Get67Off
You get: $67 off from your total bill

Dreamhost Performance

There has been mixed response about the performance of Dreamhost servers. There are web masters who are completely satisfied with the host for years and also others who complain about slow page loading and downtime. It is interesting note that, unlike most hosts they do not offer an uptime guarantee at all.

Dreamhost Price Value

Paid annually, they charge around $10 per month, which is slightly above the industry average. But that is fair enough for a hosting account offering plenty of features and resources.

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Dreamhost Support

Another shock here, they do not offer phone support. No toll free lines, even no regular support lines! If you upgrade your package, you get a fixed number of call backs, which ned to be scheduled from the control panel.

On the positive side, their email support is fast and efficient. Most tickets get replied under 1 hr and at most within 2-3 hours.

Dreamhost Reviews Added By Users

My website is gone, host lost the backup
Site Hosted: http://www.dreamhost.com/
IP Address: 24.152.140.168

I am an IT consultant with a lot of web experience. I deal with a lot of web hosting providers. One of my customers was using Dreamhost, it was a nightmare....

Mid February we noticed the website was down, it was fine a couple of days earlier. I picked up the phone, then proceeded to smash it against my forehead after realizing that you cant call these guys!! They only support you via email unless you pay more money! I took a deep breath and proceeded to write them an email pleading with them to look into the problem. 1,2,3,4,5, send receive clicks later - no email back. I got a reply the next morning stating that our account was disabled due to non payment and they repo'd it.

Happy to hear it was just a payment issue I asked the accounting dept. to look into it. They said that dreamhost was on auto pay. I sent this info in a super nice email to dreamhost and got a cup of coffee. They replied in 20 minutes, pretty fast! told me to login to my control panel and pay now, I did.

This is where it turns into a bad dream. The payment was confirmed and some Script auto re enabled our site. It was a big empty white space where the website should have been.

I picked up the phone, doh!! Emailed them right away pleading with them to have a look at the site. Here is their exact words:

"Ok I took a look at the account history and it appears that the account was suspended on 2008-12-18, now our system only offers 2 week old backups that progress everyday.. this means that the contents of the account will be gone after 2 weeks f the backup system not having anything to backup.
Being that it has been longer then 2 weeks we no longer have the contents of the website but the site itself is accessible and the account can be used, you will need to upload a backup for the site you may have or recreate the site. Sorry about that."

You know those dreams where your falling.....ahhhh....

I asked for a refund:

ME: "Wow. This is unacceptable. Please get the site back up or refund my payment immediately."

NIGHTMAREHOST: "I cannot promise that we can refund your card.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can answer for you!"

Keep in mind that the account was setup for auto pay. The credit card on file was up to date. we did not receive any notification of our delinquency.

This experience has really made me appreciate all the other web host I deal with for the simple fact that I can pick up the phone and call them. I hope you can learn from our mistake. Also make your own website backups! Do not trust the host backups. Good luck!

Jeff, California on 2009-02-27
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