DreamHost reviews

Dreamhost - straighforward and great for the novices

I have hosted my websites with Dreamhost for 3 years now and I have been really happy with them so far. I recommend it especially for all those who are like me, not tech-savvy. It's the ideal choice. I once have done some mishandling on my website which led to many errors on it, and it ended being blocked completely. The customer support was very quick to respond and they put back everything in the right place for me which I really appreciated.
What I also like is that setting up a Wordpress site is really quick and easy. Everything is explained on their site and I did it myself with the one-click install, without any struggles. The dashboard is also very ergonomic. I can easily understand everything since it's straightforward and ideally made for novices. You won't spend a long time to search for a piece of information or a function. Compared with the hosting I used before, Dreamhost is really easy to handle and all the information you may need to know is clearly stated on the dashboard.
Finally (and it's what I like the most), once you have one hosting, you can host as many domains as you want. It's unlimited, which is great because I could have all my sites on one hosting and manage them on one page. Same, you can get at least 3 email addresses with your domain names and they are all free, same as the SSL certificate.

Biggest Pro: Very easy to understand and manipulate
Biggest Con: The available language is only English

Has been a good hosting provider for my needs

I switched to DreamHost after the GoDaddy debacle. I have to say I have found them to be a good, decent, non-shady web host. Lots of actually helpful information provided via the support site, the backend management software works well for software installation and maint. They are very upfront about costs and give you plenty of warning, like a month or more, about when your domain is up for renewal or you are about to be billed for their services.

Biggest Pro: Lots of communication about domain expiry and billing periods

Terrible, Slow Support, Downtimes, relay switches, etc.

Terrible, I have been with them for a very long time. Probably about 8 years. They used to be good but now they are TERRIBLE. Customer service gives you answers 2 days later. No phone support. I lost about $8K in one month because of their response to simple solutions. Every email said: SORRY. I stop giving crap about the apology a year ago. Also, hackers love messing with dream host all the time. All my sites got hacked couple of times. You get what you pay for - whatever is cheap - its bad. Unless you have a 5 page HTML site - dont bother.

Biggest Pro: cheap and its all unlimited
Biggest Con: everything else especially LACK OF TECH support

service level degrading continuously

Hi,
I've been hosting with Dreamhost for long time and off lately noticed lot of network outages and downtime (You can check frequency on http://dreamhoststatus.com). Seems like dreamhost is not able to handle the load with its old infrastructure and their technical team is not competent enough to upgrade hardware successully even with long network maintenance window.
On another note, my site very frequntly gets all those network error and support says, the server process is being killed because of overload. If a host can't support a wordpress site (without any scheduled cron job/processes) then I don't know what else it can handle, probably a static site with few html pages.
I use to be big dreamhost supporter but not any more and will strongly discourage people from signing up with them until they fix all their and hardware and network issues.
Thanks,
Mansoor

Biggest Pro: cheap, nice control panel (IMO)
Biggest Con: Frequent downtime, not enough resources to support website running wordpress

Bad news - 4 thumbs down

Their service is hard to wade through, and not user friendly at all. It's very difficult to figure out how to manage your url, your database, and your server space. It's all very gambled up and you can't tell one service from the other. Also, the way their system manages ftp users is ridiculous. So convoluted that you can't tell who's naming what. Also, lots of down time, of with seems to mess everything up. It's difficult to even get just a regular ftp connection working. Their customer service is so bad, you can only communicate with them through their email ticking system. No live chat, no phone. You're often left with searching through their crappy forums. To top it off, they are a rip off. I don't know how they stay in business.

Biggest Pro: none
Biggest Con: lack of customer service

No serious problems

I surprised to see so many very negative reviews. For inexpensive, no-limits web-hosting they seem OK to me. A little slow, and a little more down-time than would be ideal, but not a major issue, there. I'll probably move when my current term expires unless they bring the price down to match the best of their competitors - they used to be cheap but are now only average.. Also my previous web-hosting, too limited in other ways, had cPanel, and I really miss that. Not sure why they don't use it, as their own web-panel is very basic in comparison. (You listening Dreamhost guys?) Overall, though, I'm a reasonably satisfied customer.

Biggest Pro: Carbon offset, seem like nice geeks, not corporate.
Biggest Con: Unexciting pricing now, lack of cPanel

Quite happy

I'm being hosted from a friend who owns a DreamHost account since December of last year, and I must say I'm very satisfied with DreamHost service.

During this months, I've experienced downtime one time only and, after contacting my friend (who worked with DH support), that was solved in about a day; after that I've had no issues whatsoever, not even a tiny glitch.

I think the only problem nowadays is the price: $ 8.95/mo sure is not cheap and I'm thankful to my friend who offered to host me there - or, though DreamHost has always been what its name says - I would've never had a chance, otherwise there would've been no way I could have my site there.

Biggest Pro: Uptime and connection speed
Biggest Con: The price, not for everyone's wallet.

Issues out of the blue, they always assume it's not their problem

Encountered numerous issues after their recent security breach. Support blames everything else, and issues continue even after following their suggestions. IMHO, they have a lot of internal issues they can't or won't address. I'm moving my hosted sites elsewhere, really have no choice.

Don't do it, you'll be sorry....

First off, I don't typically become motivated to do a review but this has been a lesson in disaster.
To recount;
Signed up only to get the third degree on my credit card to where I was required to send in a rubbing of it as well as a copy of my DL (then it was rejected because they could not read it.
Contacted customer service to "nicely" complain and was told it was a error on their part and it would be fixed.
Was assured that DH was the place to be and they were dedicated to make me happy.
Went ahead and registered and set up the domain name (on their dime) only to find out the system was down and had accrued 83 complaint tickets in that day alone. No resource or customer support was available at this time or any time you need them.
Decided to discontinue service and was (and still am) caught in a loop with their automated system that will not let me complete service shutdown.
My domain is locked out for 60-90 days now (can't use it or transfer)
Contacted customer support and left detailed email of problem only to find out my email was undeliverable (through their generated "help" address).
I hesistate to say it but have become of the opinion that their website is set up with "traps and loops" designed to specifically keep you tied up while they bill you for a service they cannot provide.
Please note: I'm not even pissed (yet!) just seriously disappointed

Biggest Pro: NONE
Biggest Con: ALL!!!

Terrible performance and service

Just look at http://dreamhoststatus.com

almost DAILY outages, sometimes multiple outages per day. This last outage on all VPS servers lasted more than a day!

'Nuff said?

NO, there is still more. I'm on a shared server with very minimal Wordpress install with few plugins. Very light, a couple of 2 dozen posts. Their server kills some of my processes because they exceed the permitted memory. That's what they say anyway, and continuously say I should upgrade to a more expensive service.

Their shared servers can't even handle small installations.

Not as advertised.

Biggest Pro: Cheap
Biggest Con: Very slow servers with low memory can't handle minimal Wordpress installs.