Dreamhost Review: Are the Cheap Plans Worth It?
Tutorial Hosting
In this Dreamhost review i’ll go through the most up-to-date information about everything you should know before you buy Dreamhost, like advantages, disadvantages, support, performance and overall what type of websites benefit from using Dreamhost the most. Last year, I looked more into the managed WordPress plans that DreamHost is
Offering this time I want to pay more attention to their shared web hosting plans so I’m going to grab a fresh account to see how a new user might experience DreamHost for the first time. I’ll go with the unlimited shared hosting plan for $3.95 a month
Which totals out to around $50 for 1 year. Quite cheap actually, for comparison a plan that offers similar features from SiteGround, a more premium web hosting provider would cost you $135 while providers like Bluehost, would cost you $90 and a cheaper option like Hostinger is
Still 65 bucks. Keep in mind, that I am testing all of these plans using discounts, you can get the exact same exclusive discounts by using the links in the description. But I want to be super transparent here and let you know that these links are
Actually affiliate links, meaning if you buy anything through them i’ll make a small commission. This is what allows me to improve the quality of my videos, keep the information unbiased and accurate. So, thank you for your support and let’s get back to this
Dreamhost review, getting back on track Dreamhost is actually offering one of the cheapest 1-year plans that are available right now. So, if you’re not looking to commit for long you just need hosting for a year or a couple of months Dreamhost is gonna be the cheapest choice you can go with.
After you’re done with your purchase you’ll see this screen. There’s no need to wait for activation or manual approval of your plan all you need to do is wait around 3 minutes for the server space to be allocated for your plan, the control panel itself is easy to
Understand and definitely more beginner friendly than the standard cpanel that comes with a lot of other web hosting providers. Right off the bat you can see a huge blue button saying install WordPress now. Once clicked it will start the installation process you’ve got to be patient here for me the installation took around
20 minutes. And at one point I even thought it was stuck. So, I’ve contacted the support they’ve responded almost immediately to their credit but they explained that well basically it’s working fine it’s just slow so don’t get worried if it’s taking a bit longer than you would expect.
Once it’s finished your website will look something like this just as the default WordPress theme and you can work on the design or content yourself at this point but it is already online and available for people to see. So, the whole process from purchase to
Online took around 25 minutes. At the moment, it would seem that Dreamhost is going through a little bit of a data phase with their control panel there’s new functionality and new designs added every single day. But keep in mind, that this is a work in progress even though they’re trying to
Make everything easier for their users the interface is a bit more glitchier Than I would like. Once you’ve created a basic website you’ll still have this email setup button. Let’s see what happens when I click that, just as expected it’s a simplified way to create a professional looking email address
Keep in mind that, this function is included with every single Dreamhost plan. So, I’m able to quickly create an email called emit@emitreviews.com nice and professional you can also manage your email addresses by clicking on mailbox manager. Here, you’ll be able to change the password
Set auto removal of old emails to save space and even set up an autoresponder so if someone messages your business you can automatically reply with the message like thanks for contacting me or receipts for purchases. Basically stuff like that. If you want to
Actually check your email box to see what kind of emails you’ve got you can do so by clicking this link and logging in. The mailbox itself looks modern and you’ll probably have no problems communicating using it, Since DreamHost just updated it. I’ve definitely used older solutions in the past
And I had no problems so I’m sure this will work just fine. If this seems complicated don’t worry as soon as you go through these setup steps you can actually reach your email box by clicking on go to webmail straight from your dashboard. But if you don’t want to use Dreamhost
Every single time you need to access your email box I actually have a guide on how you can set up that to work with gmail that you can find right here. Moving on what additional settings do you get to play with when choosing DreamHost? Well, clicking on
Domains website and manage you get access to your site specific features here you can change the PHP version to the latest one DreamHost does offer PHP 7.4 which is the newest version at the moment. So, your website will be fastest using this version you can also manage your website files
Manually and see when your free ssl certificate expires. But don’t worry about that too much as a Dreamhost does renew your ssl certificates completely automatically and for free as well. This is true for every single domain you buy at Dreamhost. By the way, an ssl certificate
Adds this green lock next to your domain name encrypting your website and making the connection secure it’s a mandatory security feature that’s highly necessary for pretty much every single website So for me personally, this is the most interesting part of the review
The performance because in essence it’s the main component of the service that you’re gonna be paying for everything else is just a nice bonus or simple gift wrapping to start things off I need a baseline so I jumped into my WordPress dashboard to see
What my auto install software came with as you can see it did come with some plugins that are deactivated by default So, I’ll just uninstall all of them and have a simple empty website. By the way, what i find to be really disappointing is that a Dreamhost, unlike A2 hosting or SitegGound
More speed focused web hosting companies don’t offer any custom plugins or software to help you optimize your website DreamHost relies on third-party plugins that you’ll need to install yourself and learn to use yourself if you want to optimize your website for the best
Possible performance. I’ll also change the theme to the one I always use for testing i don’t exactly know why i just find it more appealing than the other ones. So, this is how the website looks currently. Pretty much just a static page let’s see how fast it loads
Just so we’re on the same page i’ll be using a tool called GTMetrix. It will allow me to measure the loading speed of my website with relative ease I’ve did 2 tests to show you a cool little example of how much impact your data center location can have
If we test from dallas USA I get a loading speed of 0.7 seconds. Which is incredibly fast and a really really good result However, if we would switch to Vancouver Canada the loading speed drops to 1.3 seconds almost twice as slow this happens because DreamHost.
Only has 2 data centers where they store all of your website information and they’re both located in the United States. One in the west coast and one in the east coast so naturally the further that information needs to travel between the
Server and the user the longer it will take for that user to reach your website that’s why I always recommend choosing data centers that are gonna be closest to your user base not you because they’re the ones that are actually gonna be visiting your website. And of course there are ways to mitigate
This by using content delivery networks but that’s a topic for another video the main takeaway from this is if your customers are not from the United States you might want to consider another web hosting provider that has data centers all across the world like Hostinger or SiteGround i’ll leave reviews and
Discount links for both providers in the description that I recommend you check out after watching this video. Just to keep things fair for all further testing i’ll be using the United States servers Because that’s where Dreamhost is the strongest but enough of this empty website nonsense let’s simulate an actual website and
Send some users to it to see how dreamhost reacts to a real live website scenario. First of all, and I recommend you do this as well with your websites go into the appearance tab and delete all of the pre-installed themes that you’re not using
Even if you’re not using resources they will still slow your website down by taking up space after that’s done i’ve added some flair to my website and simulated something that could pass for an actual website to see how fast DreamHost is able to load it.
As suspected the design elements slowed my website down but not by much. DreamHost was still able to load my site in 2.3 seconds Which is actually a completely fine result for the price that i’m paying Finally, I want to be thorough here. So, I’ll use a service called
The k6 cloud and send some virtual users on my website. To simulate actual users this is going to give us a better idea of how DreamHost performs when it’s under load I’ve set up a super simple test to send 50 virtual users onto my website over a
Five minute period seeing how the response times change with more and more users on my website after the test was done the software didn’t find any performance problems the website was able to handle this load just fine to understand this graph you need to pay
Attention to the blue line as you can see it doesn’t move up as the test goes on it just jumps up and down periodically this indicates that higher user counts didn’t faze the performance of my website in fact the biggest spike in performance was with the lowest amount of users
By this point, it’s quite clear DreamHost is offering really cheap web hosting if you buy for a shorter period of time while still offering competitive performance. But what kind of other advantages can you expect if you decide to choose DreamHost. For starters, you get a free automated
Migration tool meaning if you already have an existing website somewhere else dreamhost makes it easy to transfer your website to their hosting service so let’s test it out. I have a website called extremelycheapdomain.com and it’s currently hosted with another web hosting provider called
Hostinger here’s how my website looks. So, let’s say I want to transfer this website from Hostinger to Dreamhost. How will I go about it? Well, according to DreamHost it’s really simple all I need to do is go to my old web hosting provider in this case it’s Hostinger and
Access the WordPress panel then install a plugin called DreamHost automated migration once that’s done i need to go back into Dreamhost, get my unique id from the dashboard and paste it in the plugin and that’s it everything else is done automatically. In real time, I had to wait around 10mins
For this I’ve sped it up for the video here but after the process was done my website was fully migrated all of the files that were on my Hostinger website are now on my Dreamhost website and the best part is that you can use
This tool completely free to migrate your website if you’re hosting on Dreamhost another notable advantage that Dreamhost has over other providers is that they allow you to buy plans monthly no need to pay for 1 year or 2 years upfront. If you just need a site for a couple of months
Most other web hosting providers require you to buy for a minimum period of 1 year. While DreamHost doesn’t have any unique disadvantages they still share the same disadvantages as most other web hosting companies mainly the increase in price after first purchase but not with every single plan
As I understand it if this sounds confusing it is it’s super confusing but let me try to do my best to explain this Okay, as you can see here we have the prices for shared starter and shared unlimited plans which are $2.59 and $3.95 respectively but these
Are promotional prices that means you only get this price on your first purchase there’s this little question mark next to the shared unlimited plan that explains that this plan renews at $7.95 instead of $3.95, but if we would go into my dashboard right now you can see that my plan would renew at
$9.95 a month. Long story short more likely than not you’ll need to pay more after your initial purchase when it’s time to renew your plans because the first time it’s a promotional price and the second time is the regular renewal price if you’re looking for a web hosting
Company that doesn’t have these sneaky price increase tactics I recommend you check out InterServer. I actually have a review of InterServer on my channel right here, another notable disadvantage is their support team. Currently, the chat is disabled altogether but even when it’s online it’s not 24/7.
You can only get chat support at certain working hours. Finally should you get Dreamhost for your website well in my honest opinion if you’re someone who’s looking for shorter term web hosting for a small to mid-sized website The Dreamhost shared web hosting plans are actually excellent
And as a company Dreamhost is still among my favorites they’re an independent company and they’re more focused on users rather than profit margins the prices are the lowest in the market for short term hosting the performance is on par with more
Expensive plans from their competitors and you get a lot of modern features like an up-to-date control panel free migration tools and an ssl certificate if you’re ready to migrate to Dreamhost or start a completely new project using dreamhost use the links down below and get a significant discount
But if you’re unsure about what type of web hosting you need for your project feel free to check out my channel where i do all sorts of stuff related to web hosting. If you don’t find the answer there feel free to leave a comment down
Below i try to read and answer every single one and help you out the best i can but for now thanks for watching good luck with your website and i’ll see you in the next video you
I will focus on their Unlimited Shared web hosting plans in this Dreamhost review. Is the low price worth considering or do you have to sacrifice performance? ► DreamHost 50% discount – https://emit.reviews/go/dreamhost-2023?dreamrev20 ▬ EUR MENTIONED IN VIDEO ► Hostinger 90% OFF – https://emit.reviews/go/hostinger-2023?dreamrev20 ► SiteGround 50% OFF – https://emit.reviews/go/siteground-2023?dreamrev20 ► InterServer Discounts – https://emit.reviews/go/interserver-2023?dreamrev20 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ As this Dreamhost review shows, is Dreamhost is a cheap web hosting provider that offers competitive performance, ease of use, an intuitive dashboard, and plenty of features. Dreamhost frequently updates its platform and provides new features to try out. In my opinion, Dreamhost is one of the most user-oriented companies that will not disappoint you. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ SCHEDULE 00:00 – Introduction 00:20 – Pricing 1:43 – Control Panel and Features 5:25 – Performance 9:50 – Advantages 11:34 – Disadvantages 13:08 – Recommendation ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ PRICES In my last Dreamhost review, I talked more about their managed WordPress hosting solution called Dreampress. This time I will focus more on the cheaper solution via the shared web hosting plans. And a 1-year plan with Dreamhost actually only costs around $50, which is one of the cheapest short-term hosting deals you can get anywhere. However, Dreamhost increases the price after the first purchase upon renewal. ► DreamHost 50% OFF – https://emit.reviews/go/dreamhost-2023?dreamrev20 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ CONTROL PANEL During While I was using their web hosting services to write and film this Dreamhost review, I noticed that they are experimenting with a new control panel designed to make using their services easier and faster. However, since it is still new and a work in progress, I have noticed that there are often several errors or glitches. Especially with the automatic WordPress installation they offer. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ PERFORMANCE Here's the interesting thing: Although Dreamhost offers cheap plans, they are very fast and stable. Just like in my last Dreamhost review, this year I was surprised at what good service Dreamhost can offer at a low price. I used three different tools to test the speed, stability, and ability to handle users, and Dreamhost achieved great results in all three categories with a plan that costs just $2.59 per month. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ADVANTAGES OF DREAMHOST By far the biggest advantage that Dreamhost offers is the free migration plugin. If you have a website hosted elsewhere, you can easily transfer it to DreamHost for free. At the same time, you can benefit from a free SSL certificate and monthly pricing for their plans. While most web hosting providers require a commitment of at least one year. Dreamhost allows you to purchase relatively cheap monthly plans. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ DREAMHOST CONS As my DreamHost review introduced in 2020, they don't actually have any unique cons, they are more suffers from the same problems as most other web hosting companies. Mainly the poor or limited support and the price increase after your original plan expires and it's time for a renewal. At the same time, I suspect that sometimes the “beta version” control panel doesn’t do exactly what you expect it to do. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ RECOMMENDATION I recommend DreamHost for people looking for short-term hosting for small to medium-sized websites (if you can get their shared web hosting -Plans). Honestly there is nothing wrong with DreamHost and they are very user focused and are constantly improving and adapting their service to achieve the best possible performance. ► DreamHost 50% OFF – https://emit.reviews/go/dreamhost-2023?dreamrev20 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ – DISCLOSURE – I am affiliated but not sponsored by any hosting provider. This means I may earn money if you purchase hosting services through the links provided and may offer discounts when they are available. All my opinions on this channel are always my own! #DreamHostReview #DreamHostReview2020 #DreamHostReviews
#Dreamhost #Review #Cheap #Plans #Worth
