DreamHost Review 2024 – Forbes Advisor Australia

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.