Review: Dreamhost Webhosting

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I recently had a bout of problems with my discount webhost I was using, namely my site would be down intermittantly for days. I had to find a better host. I did a lot of research and came across Dreamhost. Most of the reviews were good. The ones that were bad had to do with very custom, technical issues that 99% of users will not have problems with. Dreamhost is an employee-owned company. This is great because I know that the employees there have a vested interest in their customers. I have experienced the gamut in webhosting at large providers. One even told me I didn’t have hosting with them. Hmmm.

My experience with Dreamhost is that they make everything extremely easy to setup. Their documentation is excellent. The couple of times I’ve posed questions to their tech support, I received an answer in a timely manner. Answers that resolved my questions I might add, not simple “I replied so I can close my ticket answers” We’ve all gotten those. In short I have to say I am extremely pleased and will continue to host with them until I find a reason not to. I suggest you try them out if you are in need of a good host. There are hosts a dime a dozen out there, but these guys have been around a long time and offer quality hosting at very reasonable prices. They have very mature self-service features and their bandwidth and disk they provide are very competitive for most hosting needs. I am hosting a corporate website, 3 Wordpress blogs, and a project collaboration site for the past few months without any problems.

List of Dreamhost Features that made me switch

• I was hosting multiple sites and they had hosting for unlimited domains. This would save me money in the long-run. I even host my brother’s site thiseye.com on it now. Incidentally he had issues with his free-hosting that he was using. You get what you pay for… lesson learned.
• 178 Gig Storage (I will never need that much. Famous last words)
• Unlimited MySQL databases
• Web-based account control panel
• 3,000 pop/web email accounts - I use gmail hosted for email so its not a biggie, but nice to have
• 5 shell accounts - I love this. I don’t have to fumble with a web interface if I choose not to. I have complete freedom including cron
• Custom DNS - This is a must. Eventually you’ll want to customize your DNS
• 1 Free domain registration - How handy. I saved $10.
• PHP 4/5
• Full Shell Access
• Crontab Access
• Full CGI Access
• Ruby on Rails - I have activeCollab running for project management so this was sweet. I replaced my home activeCollab with a hosted activeCollab in a datacenter
• Server-side includes
• CVS Repository
• Subversion
• WordPress, phpBB, Advanced Poll, ZenCart, MediaWiki, Joomla, Gallery, WebCalendar one-click installs - I use Wordpress & it truly is 1 click

The best part? I got 1yr of hosting for $120 - $60 coupon - $10 for the free domain. My effective cost was really $50/year. That my friend is cheap! For what I get and my experience so far, it is truly a bargain.

I have included my coupon code here. If you use it you’ll get $60 off for the 1yr level 1 hosting plan.

Click the below link and enter Coupon Code DAXDESAIDOTCOM when you signup to get $60 off

You’ll basically end up paying $60 for 1yr of hosting, but you’ll also get 1 free domain registration (a $10 value).

Happy hosting. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions on my experience or features.