DreamHost Review 2024: Pricing, Pros & Cons

Since its humble beginnings in 1997, DreamHost has grown to service more than 400,000 customers in 100 countries. Today, it hosts more than 1.5 million websites, including 750,000 WordPress sites. No matter which of its five hosting services you choose, you’ll receive a number of freebies, including free SSL certificates, a free domain and free WHOIS Privacy protection.

DreamHost offers dedicated WordPress hosting as well as shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated server hosting and cloud hosting. If you choose shared hosting or WordPress hosting, you’ll get a 97-day or 30-day money-back guarantee, respectively. Other plans don’t come with a money-back guarantee—just a DreamHost credit if you cancel your plan early.

Because DreamHost offers such versatility for beginners to experts, we’ve ranked it highly in our pick of the best web hosting services.

Pros

DreamHost is the king of easy WordPress installs. It just takes one click to install the content management system (CMS) and have it up and running. If you’re importing your WordPress site from another service, you can even migrate it for free using a manual plug-in. If you need a little extra help, handing over the reins to the customer support team is $US99 ($157 AUD).

Speaking of free, DreamHost offers a number of free features that other hosting providers charge for. The free SSL certificates, domain and WHOIS Privacy protection are all things that can help save you money each month.

We also like DreamHost’s wide number of plans. That can make it a little confusing to narrow down which option is right for you, but it means you can find a plan that has only the features and options you need. This makes it a good choice for newbie website builders to advanced programmers alike.

Cons

Unlike many other hosting providers, DreamHost charges for its anti-malware tool. At $US3 ($4.73 AUD) a month, this cost could add up over time. Without this tool, your site may be susceptible to hackers who steal your customers’ private information or send them to harmful websites.

While DreamHost does offer robust 24/7 support, there’s no way to call in and talk to a real person—even for Australian business owners based in the US. It all happens through email and chat, which can be hard to deal with if you need an immediate answer when your site goes down.

Some users might also find the lack of a cPanel frustrating. Instead, you’ll have to use DreamHost’s custom control panel. While it offers pretty much all of the same functionalities as a cPanel, including website management, databases, email access and billing, it might be limiting if you’re used to another, more advanced setup. Most casual users shouldn’t have issues, however. Additionally, if you’re trying to import a cPanel from another web host, you’ll have to do all of this manually using file transfer protocol (FTP) or MySQL.

Types of Web Hosting

DreamHost offers five different kinds of web hosting for various types of users. Most beginner users will just want to explore shared or WordPress hosting. More advanced users who want full functionality out of their websites might prefer VPS, dedicated server and cloud server hosting:

• Shared hosting: With shared hosting, your website will share server space with other users, which could keep performance a little slower. However, all plans come with unlimited bandwidth and storage.
• Managed VPS hosting: Virtual service hosting plans mean you’ll have resources allocated specifically for your website, improving performance and speed.
• Managed dedicated server hosting: For top speeds, use dedicated service hosting. You’ll have the entire server to yourself as well as full root and shell access for greater control.
• Managed WordPress hosting: If you know you’ll be running your site on WordPress, it makes sense to choose these plans. They come with WordPress preinstalled and offer on-demand backups and one-click restore.
• Cloud server hosting: Web designers will appreciate DreamHost’s cloud computing and object storage. These give you back-end access with full root access and OpenStack-compatible application programming interface (API) requests.

Website Builder

DreamHost offers a free WordPress website builder on all plans. It gives you the option to pick from more than 200 starter sites or build your own from scratch. Because it’s a drag-and-drop builder, even beginners should find it easy to create their own layouts and templates using more than 100 design block options. The quick-start wizard can guide you from start to finish if you don’t know how to begin.

Domain Registration

To launch your site, you’ll need a domain name for it. DreamHost sells .com domains for $US7.99 ($13 AUD) per year, which is on the lower side of typical pricing. However, if you’d like something more unique, you can choose from more than 400 top-level domains.

All domains come with free private registration and unlimited subdomains. The domain management page is simple and intuitive. From one page, you can edit Domain Name System (DNS) records, enable domain forwarding and even transfer old domains to DreamHost.

Email Hosting

DreamHost’s email hosting costs $US1.67 ($2.62 AUD) per month, per mailbox, with a yearly plan. You’ll get 25 GB of storage per mailbox. An industry-leading internet message access protocol (IMAP) service ensures your emails are perfectly synced between all of your devices. With the built-in webmail interface, you can organise your messages into folders, employ delivery filters and even use custom aliases when sending messages.

DreamHost also comes loaded with free inbound spam filtering that should keep phishing attacks and viruses out of your inbox. All of these features are why we ranked DreamHost as one of the best email hosting services.

Shared Starter Plan

The Shared Starter only lets you host one website and includes unlimited storage, so it’s best for users who are testing out the idea of starting a blog or community resource. You’re also limited to five subdomains, six FTP users and six MySQL databases. If you want a custom email address, you’ll need to pay to add this on.

Shared Unlimited Plan

With the Shared Unlimited plan, you can host as many websites as you want. You also have unlimited site storage, users and databases. Email is included in the price, and you can create as many accounts as you wish.

As you can see, both of these plans offer a lot for their price point, which is why we ranked DreamHost as one of the best shared hosting providers.

VPS Basic Plan

The VPS Basic plan comes with 1 GB RAM and 30 GB SSD storage. The Business plan bumps that up to 2 GB RAM and 60 GB SSD storage while the Professional increases things to 4 GB RAM and 120 GB SSD storage. Finally, the Enterprise plan has 8 GB RAM and 240 GB SSD storage.

DreamHost recommends the Basic plan for small, new websites and the Business plan for small businesses with a fair amount of traffic. Both the Professional and Enterprise options are best for resource-intensive sites.

We find DreamHost incredibly easy to use. Its customised DreamHost panel is easier for newbies to navigate than a traditional cPanel. You’ll see all of your options on the left side of the screen, which makes it easy to find what you’re looking for.

When it comes time to build your website, the WordPress builder is also simple to use. Simply choose a theme and then drop and drop elements to your liking. You can add your own photos or use DreamHost’s library of royalty-free images.

DreamHost comes loaded with security features to make your websites safer for visitors. It includes a malware remover tool called DreamShield that finds and removes problematic files. However, at the cost of $US3 ($4.73 AUD) per month, it may not be worth it for all users.

DreamHost also offers free WHOIS Privacy registration, meaning people can’t look up your personal details and send you spam. You’ll even get a free SSL/transport layer security (TLS) certificate for your site from Let’s Encrypt, which is essential if you’ll be collecting any sort of customer data.

Another rare feature is free automated backup. Most services charge extra for this. You can perform on-demand backups as well, to secure your data.

If you’re struggling, DreamHost offers support options 24/7, 365 days a year. It offers a chat widget on the home page for sales questions. For customers, you can access both support chat and email through your DreamHost control panel.

There is no customer support phone number to call, which could be a drawback if you prefer speaking directly to someone. However, there is a comprehensive knowledge base and discussion forum should you get stuck.

Professional Creative Services

If you need a little help getting your site to its fullest potential, DreamHost offers several paid professional services, including:

• Custom web design: With this service, a professional designer will create a website for you from scratch. This starts at $US1,499 ($2,379 AUD).
• Marketing: DreamHost offers both SEO marketing and social media marketing for $US399 ($633 AUD) a month each.
• Website management: Don’t feel like managing your site? DreamCare management starts at $US59 ($94 AUD) per month and will handle your site for you. You can also add site optimisation for $US399 ($633 AUD), website transfers for $US99 ($157 AUD), site updates for $US299 ($474 AUD) and hacked site repair for $US199 ($316 AUD).
• Web development: If you have an idea for an app, plug-in or other design, the web development team charges $US89 ($141 AUD), per hour, to make your dream come to life.

DreamHost Academy

For people new to creating a website, the DreamHost Academy is the ultimate resource. It’s loaded with tutorials on how to build a site, get traffic and optimise your views. Each course has pages on specific aspects of website building to help you get more comfortable in the driver’s seat.

WooCommerce Hosting

If your goal is to get an e-commerce store up and running, DreamHost has special WooCommerce hosting that runs through its WordPress plans. These come with WooCommerce preconfigured so you can save yourself some time. You can also enjoy one-click staging to preview updates before they go live.

DreamHost stacks up well against these three services. It has one of the lowest starting costs, which is good if you’re on a budget. It also offers the highest storage options at a low-tier plan.

That said, where it falls behind is the average response time. GoDaddy, HostGator and Bluehost all had much faster average times, meaning they’re more likely to load faster for viewers. While this might not be a huge deterrent, if you want a site that’s highly responsive and doesn’t leave customers hanging, you might want to explore these other picks.

DreamHost vs GoDaddy

GoDaddy is the same price as DreamHost and offers pretty similar features. One area where it excels is free domain names—all plans include this for a year, whereas DreamHost only offers it in select plans. GoDaddy also uses its own website builder instead of WordPress. If you hate WordPress, this could be a good thing, but if you’re comfortable with it, moving to a new content management system (CMS) could be a hassle.

DreamHost vs HostGator

While HostGator is a little more expensive than DreamHost, it does come with free email and a domain name at all plan levels. That said, since adding email to DreamHost is only $US1.67 ($2.62 AUD) a month, those savings aren’t justifiable..

DreamHost vs Bluehost

Bluehost’s base plan is the same as DreamHost’s, which will add up over time. Since DreamHost offers more storage and has most of the same specs otherwise, we’re not sure that the upgraded cost is worth it.

Overall, because DreamHost has such a variety of plans, it fits a lot of different types of needs. Small businesses still finding their footing will appreciate the low-entry cost of DreamHost’s shared and DreamPress plans. You don’t need to be a professional designer to build a website that will look stunning and personalised.

Meanwhile, Australian businesses with more traffic and a bigger online presence will love the VPS and dedicated hosting plans. Engineers who want to craft a unique offering will highly value DreamPress’ cloud hosting offerings.

Featured Partners

1

Bluehost

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On Bluehost.com’s Website

Starting price

$2.95 per month

Standout Features

Free domain name & SSL for a year

Money Back Guarantee

30 Day

2

HostGator

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On HostGator’s Website

Starting price

$US3.75 ($5.62 AUD) per month

Storage and Bandwidth

Unmetered

Extras and inclusions

Free domain registration for a year, free website and domain transfer, free SSL certificate, free email

3

IONOS

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On IONOS’s Secure Website

Starting price

$US2 ($2.95 AUD) per month

Drag-and-drop interface

Yes

SSL certificate included

Yes