DreamHost Hosting – A Comprehensive Review of Its Features, Performance, and Pricing

Updated on: 16th Apr 2025

Dreamhost Hosting is a web hosting provider established in 1996 and registered just a year later in the county of L.A. in California. They now boast over 400 thousand customers. They offer web hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, cloud hosting and the important WordPress Hosting.

One of DreamHost’s goals is to take pride in offering its customers the best service possible. DreamHost also wants its customers to be in full control of their own data, so it doesn’t mine your data for its own beneficial purposes.

(Since this post was published, DreamHost has completely revamped its plans. Back in 2017, it offered three main plans but now has many more covering Shared Hosting, Managed WP Hosting, WooCommerce, and VPS Hosting for high-performing installs or sites.)

Does DreamHost Hosting offer good Hosting?

DreamHost Hosting’s Plans;

DreamHost offers four individual plans: the basic plan, the Plus plan, the Advanced plan, and the Dreampress+WooComerce plan. You can also get a custom plan with more power to better suit you and your sites. To get a custom plan, you will need to contact DreamHost directly. This is ideal if you need hosting for more than just a few sites or for larger-scale sites, which may need more storage.

With every plan, users will get access to resource scaling and cloud platforms. Resource scaling allows your website(s) to perform and work even when or if you attract a lot of traffic within a short period. How does DreamHost do this? Well, if they notice your site gaining better traffic, they will use more power and resources to keep your site afloat.

Shared WordPress Hosting Plans;

Dreamhost now offers two shared hosting plans for WordPress. They advertise ‘Starting from $2.59 a month,’ which can be a bit misleading because this is the price of the shared starter three-year plan.

Shared Starter;

The first Shared hosting plan DreamHost offers is the Shared Starter Plan. This plan is the cheapest of all Dreamhost’s WordPress plans. Users can access various features, including a free domain, unlimited traffic, pre-installed WordPress, and much more.

A great feature of this plan is access to the new WordPress builder. One negative of this plan is that you can only have one website. If you need more, the Shared Unlimited Plan might be for you.

Overall, this plan costs $2.59/£2.07 a month for a three-year plan, $3.95/£3.16 a month for a one-year plan or $4.95/£3.96 a month if you wish to be billed at a monthly rate, which allows you to cancel anytime.

Shared Unlimited;

The second and last Shared Hosting Plan from DreamHost is the Shared Unlimited Plan. Users gain access to all the same features as the Shared Starter Plan, which includes a Pre-Installed WordPress, Unlimited Traffic, a Free SSL, and more. The only difference between this plan and the Starter Plan is that this plan allows for unlimited websites instead of only one.

Overall, this plan costs $5.95/£4.77 a month for a three-year plan, $6.95/£5.57 for a one-year plan, and $10.95/£8.77 if you wish to be billed monthly. However, paying monthly allows you to cancel anytime.

Managed WordPress Hosting;

DreamHost has upgraded its Managed WordPress Hosting plans. The New plans offer more to users than the previous plans, which were called the Basic, Plus and Advanced Plans, which you can see below. These plans have now been scrapped, and DreamHost now offers more up-to-date DreamPress Plans.

To see the DreamPress Plans, skip the Basic, Plus and Advanced Plans shown below.

DreamPress Plan

The first DreamPress Plan offered by DreamHost is the self-titled ‘DreamPress’ Plan. This plan comes with various features ideal for any small-medium site, such as a blog or a single-shop website.

With this plan, users have access to the new WordPress Builder, daily backups, an SSL Certificate, and 24/7 WordPress support. Overall, this plan also allows for up to 100,000 visitors a month and 30GB of SSD Storage, which is why it is perfect for small-medium sites such as blogs and online stores.

The price of this plan is quite modest, starting at $16.95/£13.58 a month when you purchase a yearly plan; otherwise, it would cost $19.95/£15.98 a month if you wish to be billed monthly.

DreamPress Plus Plan

The second DreamPress Plan is the Plus Plan. This plan is very similar to the Plus plan before the change and includes all the features of the original DreamPress Plan talked about above.

This plan includes features such as unmetered bandwidth, a pre-installed SSL Certificate, daily backups, 24/7 WordPress, and the new WordPress website builder. The only additional feature that isn’t included in the first DreamPress plan is the Unlimited CDN feature.

Again, the price of this plan is quite modest. To buy yearly, it will cost $24.95/£19.98 a month, which would be a saving of around 16% if you were to purchase this plan monthly. The cost of monthly is $29.95/£23.99.

Overall this plan allows up to 300000 visits per month on the website with up to 60GB of SSD storage.

DreamPress Pro

The final DreamPress plan is the DreamPress Pro Plan, which is more expensive than the others. A yearly plan costs $71.95/£57.63 a month, which is a savings of over 10% if you purchase this plan monthly. The cost of this plan monthly is $79.95/£63.03.

This plan features every feature offered in the DreamPress Plus plan, including the Unlimited CDN. The only difference is that with this plan, you get access to over one million visitors per month and 120GB of storage.

DreamPress and WooCommerce Plans;

The final plans DreamHost offers are the DreamPress and WooCommerce plans. These plans are ideal for any kind of e-commerce website. Whether you sell shoes, food, or even DreamHost badges, these plans can easily host your e-commerce website.

These plans cost between $19.95/£15.98 a month and $79.95/£63.03 a month for the largest WooCommerce plan. Overall, there are three plans with WooCommerce: the DreamPress plan, the DreamPress Plus plan, and the DreamPress Pro plan.

Each plan is exactly the same as the managed DreamPress plan; only WooCommerce is pre-installed on the WordPress install. All plans offer a 30-day guarantee.

Updated pricing comparison table contrasting DreamHost Hosting shared hosting plan allowances against some competitor offerings:

Provider	Storage	Bandwidth	Websites	Price	Best Value For
DreamHost	Unmetered	Unmetered	Unlimited	$2.59/mo	Unlimited sites on budget
Bluehost	50GB	Unmetered	1 Site	$2.95/mo	Those getting started
HostGator	Unmetered	Unmetered	Unlimited	$2.75/mo	Room to grow
SiteGround	10GB	Unmetered	1 Site	$6.99/mo	Faster performance
GreenGeeks	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	$2.49/mo	Eco-friendly option

Key things that stand out:

DreamHost is competitive in storage and websites
Bluehost and SiteGround are more limited
GreenGeeks is cheaper with robust features

WordPress VPS Hosting Plans;

In addition to Managed and Shared Hosting, DreamHost offers Virtual Private Server WordPress Hosting (VPS). VPS Hosting is, in fact, shared hosting that gives the illusion of dedicated hosting.

All plans come with the same features apart from the size of RAM and SSD Storage.

Features include unlimited websites and traffic, free SSL certificates and unlimited emails for your domain. You will also receive unlimited support 24/7, an appropriate support panel, automatic updates and many other tools. To find out more, visit the DreamHost website.

VPS Basic;

The first VPS plan is the basic VPS plan. This plan starts from only $10/£8.01 a month for a three-year plan. A one-year plan will cost $13.75/£11.01 a month, and a cancel anytime month-by-month plan will cost $15/£12.01 a month.

This plan has all the above features: 1GB of RAM and 30GB of SSD Storage.

VPS Business;

The VPS Business plan is DreamHost’s second VPS hosting plan. It also includes a month-to-month plan, a one-year plan, and a three-year plan. The three-year plan starts from $20/£16.02 a month, while the one-year plan costs $27.50/£22.03 a month. The final price is the month-to-month cancel anytime plan, which costs a more expensive $15/£12.01 a month.

This plan comes with all the features mentioned above plus more: 2GB of RAM and 60GB of SSD Storage.

VPS Professional;

The third VPS Hosting plan is DreamHost’s Professional plan. This plan is more suitable for larger websites due to the size of the RAM and SSD storage offered (4 GB RAM and 120GB SSD Storage).

Overall, this plan starts from $40/£32.04 a month for the three-year plan, $55/£44.05 for the one-year plan and $60/£48.06 for the monthly, cancel anytime plan.

VPS Enterprise;

The final VPS Hosting Plan offered by DreamHost is the VPS Enterprise Plan, which is the largest of the VPS Hosting Plans. Overall, the plan is quite expensive a month, with the cheapest being $80/£64.07 a month for a three-year plan, $110/£88.10 a month for the one-year plan, and $120/£96.11 a month for the month-to-month cancel anytime plan.

This plan includes all the above features plus 8GB of RAM and 240GB of SSD Storage.

Do DreamHost Hosting provide good Support?

Dreamhost offers many support features for its customers. One of the main features offered by DreamHost is its 24/7 support. Through its in-house support, you can contact DreamHost for a number of reasons. This means you can contact DreamHost directly about any sort of problem, even if it’s not an emergency.

The key areas you can contact are sales, billing, tech support, ‘I can’t log into my account’, and others. This is a great advantage as some hosts only allow you to contact them directly within certain times unless its an emergency.

There is also a section within support that allows you to check DreamHost’s system status. If your website ever goes down, this is the best place to look for answers before contacting DreamHost. Every part of their service is listed and shown whether it is operational or not.

This support page also informs users of any scheduled maintenance within DreamHost. It tells you the date of the scheduled maintenance, when it will start, and how long it will take. The service they are maintaining is also shown so that you’re not left in the dark.

Like many competitors, DreamHost has a knowledge base with many articles on various topics that you may need help with. This should always be the first step you take before going directly to their 24/7 support, as you may find your answer more quickly here, and it helps keep the calls DreamHost receives to a minimum.

There is also a forum that DreamHost users have access to, which is another alternative to finding quick answers to problems before contacting DreamHost directly.

Every plan includes a thirty-day guarantee of your money back if you don’t like DreamHost’s service. This means you will never be out of money and will not be tied to the plan immediately after signing up.

What kind of Security does DreamHost Hosting provide?

DreamHost also offers many security features for and with its plans. Security is the most important part of your website, as it helps to protect your site from hackers, spam, and other malicious software. To help prevent the unknown from happening, DreamHost has built-in security that will update, monitor, and protect your site to prevent any tragedies from happening.

With the basic plan, you can access basic backups and free SSL. The SSL encrypts pages within your sites. This is especially helpful on an E-Commerce site, as it encrypts all card and personal details. JetPack free is also included, which gives you a few extra security features. With all the other plans, you get access to JetPack Pro, Which gives you more security features than free JetPack.

The security features you will receive from JetPack Pro are brute force attack protection, spam filtering, daily backups, malware scanning and threat resolution, and secure logins—everything you could almost possibly want. JetPack Pro means your backups will be off-site with the help of VaultPress. You also get free SSL with the other plans.

You can add domain privacy and a web application firewall to your package. Domain privacy means all your personal information, such as your email and phone number, will be hidden so you won’t get spammed by people looking to build your website. The firewall ensures your site is more protected than ever as it helps defend your site from malicious attacks.

DreamHost Hosting’s Performance, what’s it like?

DreamHost advertises 100% uptime, which I think is impossible as if your site needs unscheduled maintenance or DreamHost is at fault, you may experience downtime. Although if you experience anything less than 100% you will be compensated for the stress, except if scheduled maintenance happens. Also, don’t worry about exceeding your limit of visits, as DreamHost will have you sorted right out with their resource scaling. Their resource scaling means that if your site blows up, more power will be sent to your website to keep it alive.

Upload speeds are above average, offering decent speeds. They are generally less than a second, which isn’t the best. But it will still load to a decent standard. They can’t be perfect at everything.

Users can access an image and video CDN with the plus and advanced plans. What is this? Basically, this feature helps compress images and videos into smaller files without losing their quality. This means your pages and media will load quicker compared to the loading times of your pages without the CDN. It will also mean less storage space will be taken up by images and videos, allowing you to upload more media, posts, and pages to your sites.

Server-level caching is also available to everyone, so cache plugins are unnecessary on WordPress sites. If you need more power for your sites, you can upgrade with one click.

Does DreamHost Hosting have any other or Unique Features?

DreamHost has several other features, some of which are unique to them. One of their very unique features is fast provisioning. This feature can launch a site live in five minutes or under. They also have a custom control panel to, as they say, ‘manage WordPress easily’. Many people will see this as a disadvantage, as most hosts use cPanel, so many users moving to DreamHost would be very used to cPanel.

With DreamHost, your WordPress install comes pre-installed with many themes and plugins. Some of the plugins might be just what you want and need. This means you will not need to go and find themes and plugins yourself unless you need some which you don’t get pre-installed. You’re able to create an unlimited amount of email accounts with your domain.

Positives of DreamHost Hosting;

DreamHost’s biggest positive is its relationship with WordPress itself. WordPress is one of four partners DreamHost have, and WordPress, in turn, recommends DreamHost’s hosting. Getting a recommendation from WordPress is very difficult, so DreamHost must be doing something right as one of the three recommended hosts.

The uptime and money-back guarantees can also relieve some of your stress. They mean you can always get your money back from DreamHost if you don’t like their service, and if you experience downtime, you will receive compensation.

Another positive is that DreamHost offers multiple WordPress plans, allowing you to choose the best one for you. Another positive is that you can access an unlimited number of emails with your domain.

DreamHost offers many amazing security features with every plan. They could be the difference between keeping your site alive and crashing. DreamHost’s support is also exceptional—in my words, ‘their support is out of this world’. This is due to the many ways you can contact DreamHost and the community it has.

Yes, DreamHost is one of the few green hosts. This means all of their servers since 2007 have been running on renewable energy, such as wind power. You can also earn from DreamHost by becoming an affiliate. This is where you share DreamHost on your social media to gain more customers. You don’t even need to be an existing customer to earn.

Negatives of DreamHost Hosting;

One of DreamHost’s main negatives is its price, especially for WordPress. Their cheapest plan costs $16.95 a month, which is a price some people wouldn’t want to pay for hosting. Their other plans cost between $20 and $40, which is even more expensive. However, the features you get with DreamHost balance out the price.

Another main disadvantage is that DreamHost doesn’t use cPanel. cPanel is one of the main control panels used within hosting, so many people are familiar with it. This is negative as it means their customers must learn DreamHost’s custom control panel.

DreamHost upload speeds are not the greatest compared to some of their main competition. This is another negative as some users will leave sites if pages don’t load quickly enough for them. Although the best isn’t the best, they are still better than average but have room to improve.

DreamHost Hosting My Thoughts;

DreamHost is one of the leading hosting sites you should consider when looking for hosting for WordPress sites. They might be a little more expensive than their competitors, but I think the security, support, and other features make up for the price. They have more positives than negatives, and their support seems to be one of the best hosting companies offer.

DreamHost Hosting FAQ

Still evaluating DreamHost? Here are answers to some common questions:

Does DreamHost Hosting offer phone support?

No, DreamHost provides 24/7 live chat and email ticketing support. There is no phone option.

Is DreamHost Hosting good for WordPress hosting?

Yes, optimized WordPress hosting plans and a one-click installer make setup easy.

How quickly does DreamHost Hosting provide migrations?

They commit to migrating websites within 5 business days to avoid downtime.

Does DreamHost Hosting allow multiple domains?

Yes, users can host an unlimited number of domains.

DreamHost Hosting Conclusion

DreamHost delivers tremendous value to cost-conscious site owners with unrestricted storage, unlimited website hosting, and inclusive features like Let’s Encrypt SSL and a CDN.

Competitive load times also meet the needs of most small sites. Yet more demanding users may want expanded support channels and resources better suited for handling significant traffic spikes. Overall, DreamHost remains a flexible and affordable contender.

This article was last updated on 21 November 2023

*ALL PRICING WITHIN THIS ARTICLE WERE ACCURATE AT THE TIME OF WRITING. ALL STERLING (GBP) AND EURO (EUR) WERE CONVERTED FROM DOLLARS (USD) USING GOOGLE’S CONVERTER.

*ALL PLANS AND PACKAGES MADE BY DREAMHOST ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE BY DREAMHOST THEMSELVES.