Sometimes you can get more than you pay for.
Written: Feb 06 '06 (Updated Sep 04 '06)
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Pros: insane amount of features, space, transfer for the money
Cons: occasional outages
The Bottom Line: You simply get far more than you're paying for. There are a few downsides; if you want cheap, you have to make concessions, though with Dreamhost, those don't hurt.
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| nitesite's Full Review: Dreamhost |
For many years, hosting a website was a costly prospect. More recently, costs have come down significantly, partially due to more competition, partially due to the decreasing cost of the hardware necessary to support a host. These are definitely good developments for the webmasters / web developers of that world.
I am a bargain hunter, but I also know that you usually get what you pay for. I've tried several other low price hosting solutions in the past, and there have always been disappointments and clear reasons that the pricing was so low.
I haven't found this to be the case with Dreamhost, and I've never been happier with a host.
PRICE
Dreamhost can be paid for in a number of ways, and the more you commit to, the less expensive it gets. For the lowest end plan (currently referred to as "Crazy Domain Insane") it is $7.95 a month with no set up fees when paying for 2 years up front, $9.95 a month with no set up fees when paying for 1 year up front, or $9.95 a month with a one time set up fee of $49.95 if you want a monthly billing cycle.
Paying for at least a year makes the most sense. You get to skip the set up fee, and there's really no more risk than signing up for the monthly plan, as there is a 3 month money back guarantee. (And I have known people who have canceled for one reason or another and have promptly gotten their refunds.)
There are more expensive packages available, but really, there's not much need for that when you account for what you're given with the Crazy Domain Insane plan. Read on.
FEATURES
This is what you get for the basic plan:
1 FREE domain registration
UNLIMITED domains hosted
UNLIMITED subdomains
UNLIMITED mySQL databases
20 GB Disk space, 1 TB Transfer (that's 1 TERABYTE) to start*
3000 POP3 / IMAP Mailboxes
75 Shell/FTP Users
*Each month, your disk space grows by 160MB and the transfer grows by 8 GB, meaning the longer you're with them, the more of these you have.
Also:
PHP4 Support
PHP5 Support
Full Unix Shell
Crontab Access
Full CGI Access
Ruby On Rails
Canned CGI Scripts
Server Side Includes (SSI)
CVS Repository
SSL Secure Server (req. unique IP & purchase of an SSL certificate)
Enhanced Web Security
1-Click install of many popular open source applications
WebDAV
Snapshot Data Backup
Daily Access Statistics
Access to raw log files
Banner-Free DreamBook account
Passworded Directories (.htaccess)
FrontPage Extensions
RealAudio and Video (http stream)
Quicktime Streaming
Anonymous FTP Server (req. unique IP)
And now you're saying... wow! That's far too good to be true.
Only, it isn't.
SUPPORT
Before signing up with Dreamhost, I had read several bad things about their support. Knowing that it's rare that people that are happy speak up, and that I usually have little need to contact support for most things, I decided the offerings were worth the risk. Besides, there's a 3 month money back guarantee, right?
Not only has support been responsive and friendly on the two occasions I've need to contact them, Dreamhost has an extensive knowledgebase that has provided most of the answers I was looking for by searching. (If you're one of those folks who can't bother to search for your answers first - you don't deserve good support anyway. Pardon me for a bit of attitude, but I worked in tech support for a long time, and spent a lot of that time developing help pages only to have them ignored. It's incredibly frustrating.)
There is also an end user community forum where I have been able to find an answer or two as well.
I have nothing but positive things to say about Dreamhost's support.
**UPDATE 9-5-06: I've had cause to contact support a few more times in the last few months, and I've always gotten a reply within an hour. (And they weren't even system critical questions!) As well, they have been very open about any problems they've had and have added new places to look for server status and such so that there's never a time I really felt out of touch. So again, nothing but kudos here!
SERVICE RELIABILITY
In 8 months time, I have had two minor outages for short periods of time, both of which were actually database server problems (and both were in the wee hours of the morning). Dreamhost has acknowledged that they have some work to do in this area, and again, in the vein of "you get what you pay for" -- for the price, I think 2 minor outages isn't a big deal. (If you're running some business critical website, you should be paying more for hosting and getting yourself a dedicated server. Business critical should NEVER go for the cheap.)
The only real criticism I have in this area is speed - because I am using shared hosting, there is sometimes a noticeable slowness to my sites, and creating a new database takes a bit to set up (due to their method of assigning subdomains to each database on remote db servers, rather than using localhost database servers), but neither of these has been annoying enough to make me reconsider. I figure it's part of the trade off.
**UPDATE 9-5-06: Honestly, things have gotten better on the slowness front. There have been a few outages over the summer due to problems at their colocation site -- but they were really good about staying in touch and detailing the steps they were taking to solve the issue. (And owning up to times when it was their fault.) As well, the database creation issue has gone away because they restructured the process. The fact that I'm able to update this with mostly positive things to say just makes me love them more! :)
EASE OF USE
The Dreamhost Web Administration Panel is an excellently efficient tool (though aesthetically less than pleasing - it's fully functional) - you can do nearly anything via the web panel, short of managing files. For managing files, you have FTP and UNIX shell access. It helps to know your way around all of the lingo before you jump in, but their knowledgebase also has great explanations of how to do things for those who are a little greener around the edges.
The 1-click installs are very handy, and they've just recently debuted 1-click upgrades for those. Makes it really easy to keep up with ever evolving open source applications.
THE COMPANY
This is a part that is very important to me. I like to do business with companies that share ideals and concepts of good business practice with me. There aren't a whole lot of these companies, but Dreamhost is one of them. Each month, there are two organizations selected for fundraising (one charity, one open source project), and Dreamhost will MATCH the amount given by its users. Talk about giving back!
In addition to this, the company has a sense of humor that's evident in the monthly newsletter. (Past newsletters have been done in haiku, rap-slang style, and olde English prose.) While this is probably a turn off to many, this just makes me love them more.
And then, if that weren't enough, there are user rewards. Dreamhost will pay you for every referral, and you can create your own coupon codes to offer discounts on signing up and such, to encourage people to use your referral. The payments aren't trivial either - you can choose between a one time lump sum payment, or a percentage of what your referral pays over the life of their account. It's a great way to inspire people to spread the word! (Epinions does not allow me to post my own referral link here, and so, I am writing this glowing opinion without having that benefit either -- that should tell you how much I respect them.)
Recommended:
Yes
Monthly fees (US$): 7.95 - 9.95 and up
Platform used: Linux
Hosted on Secure Server: No
Database used: MySQL
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Epinions.com ID:
nitesite
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Location: Lakewood, OH
Reviews written: 17
Trusted by: 4 members
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