Big on features, Low on price!
Written: Feb 16 '04 (Updated Feb 19 '04)
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Pros: Fast connection, serious uptime and all around great hosting company
Cons: No ASP and telephone support only available on higher level plans.
The Bottom Line: Great all around host packed with features and your money goes a long way.
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| digitalgravy's Full Review: Dreamhost |
DreamHost is by far the best hosting company I’ve used. I build websites and I’ve dealt with dozens of hosting companies. I recommend DreamHost to all of my clients and I use them for my sites.
There are so many positives and few negatives. DreamHost is very competitive in pricing, sure there are cheaper hosting companies, as well as there are more expensive ones too. I’ve found that for the price, you get a lot with DreamHost, too many for me to list here. You can check their site for a full list of features.
I have been using DreamHost for just under two years and it just keeps getting better. It seems like every month their newsletter is mentioning added features.
Here are a few of the many features included in the cheapest plan: 500 MB of disk space, 25 GB of monthly bandwidth, Unlimited MySQL Databases, 60 POP3 email boxes, webmail, spam filtering, unlimited announcement and discussion lists, PHP, Shell access, full CGI, ready to use CGI scripts, RealAudio and Streaming QuickTime and Daily Tape backups.
DreamHost offers much more that that, you get multiple ftp and shell accounts, and with the shell accounts you have FULL shell access. They have everything I wanted/needed to use already installed so it’s not a watered down shell with only a few commands available to you. Other ways to connect include Samba and WebDAV.
They have put together an all in one control panel that controls every aspect of you account from domain and mail setup to detailed statistics and everything in between. DreamHost is even an ICANN accredited domain registrar so you can handle everything in one place.
They take SPAM seriously and have a feature to report SPAM so that they can better filter it, for a while I was receiving next to no spam, lately though more has been getting through so nothing is perfect. They also implement opt-in only mailing and discussion lists to protect them as well as you from abuse complaints from visitors to your site.
As for down time, I’ve only had one instance where I was not notified in advance otherwise the support team gives you plenty of advance notice when they need to take a machine down and they explain what they are doing too. In their control panel there is a section just for system uptime and my machine is on average up for over 30 days at a time. I’ve seen it up for as long as four months. Not to mention my mail server, today it’s listed as up for 3 months and 27 days.
On the down side DreamHost does not support ASP. This really doesn't matter to me, because I don's use ASP, but if you need it you will need to go elsewhere. There is also no telephone support for you to call, they do have a callback feature where you can request a phone call, but that is only available on the three upper plans. I have never needed a callback because their 24/7 email support has been more than adequate for my needs. They are currently beta-testing live chat support, I have used it a few times and it is definitely quicker than email, but it is only available sometimes. The support I receive via email is always accurate, courteous and quick. To aid customers they have a huge knowledge base covering every aspect of what they offer and cover topics for every level of question from novice level questions to advanced features and system info. This is an invaluable resource to me.
They have four levels of hosting ranging from $9.95 - $79.95 a month and they also offer dedicated servers too. You can also but "Booster Packs" these give you three more fully hosted domains and 15 sub-domains. You can add on as many as you like.
I think the coolest feature of all besides having control to all of your websites in one account, is that you can grant other customers access to you account. You might ask yourself "Why would I want to give others access to my account?" Well there are a few reasons. You can control what features they are able to access from minimal to full control so that you can have different people in charge of different aspects of your site(s). I personally use this for my clients. Every client that I have that is hosted with DreamHost has their own account and I can access every one from within my own account with out having to log out and log back in as them. This feature is awesome, and I use it constantly.
The last three things I’ll cover are the donations, Reward’s and Price-freeze programs. They have setup a feature so that if you chose to, people can donate to your hosting bill via paypal. This is great for non-profit, or community sites for its users to contribute. The Reward’s program is great too. For every person that you refer to DreamHost you will get 10% of whatever they spend for as long as they host with DreamHost and everyone they refer, you will get 5%. This covers almost half of my hosting bill. The last thing is the Price Freeze policy they have. What ever you pay when you sign-up, is the price you will pay for as long as you are on that plan.
I recommend DreamHost to anyone who is looking for reliable hosting at a good price.
I have been using their lowest priced plan until recently. It has been more than enough for my needs, but since the beginning of the year they have had a tremendous deal I had to take advantage of. To celebrate their sixth year they are offering their 3rd package the “Code Monster” for $19.95 for as long as you keep the plan, that is half of the regular price, and that is what their second tier of service “Sweet Dreams” normally goes for. You get a ton more of almost everything, I now get 1.6 GB of storage and 40 GB of monthly bandwidth along with 15 fully hosted domains. I dont know how long this promotion will last, but it is one of the bset deals I have found anywhere.
You can find out all you need to at http://dreamhost.com
Recommended:
Yes
Monthly fees (US$): $9.95 - $79.95 - I Pay $19.95
Platform used: Linux
Hosted on Secure Server: No
Database used: MySQL
Main focus of Web site: Publishing/Content
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Epinions.com ID:
digitalgravy
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Location: Los Angeles, CA
Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Freelance Web Design and scouting sum up my time
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