Dreamhost Review

Ok, so heres my mini review of Dreamhost.

Dreamhost is definitely not as easy to use as my previous host, alot of features that were provided automatically with hostm.com have to ‘manually’ configured. For instance, hostm.com had a 1-click install feature for blogs and forums. Now dreamhost claims to have a one click install, but it really isn’t one click, dreamhost simply sets up the mySQL database and automatically fills out the database config file, Hostm did everything for you.

However, dreamhost provides alot of power with their hosting. Since you have SSH access to the server you can compile custom versions of PHP, or any other command line application you need. I compiled CSS Optimizer on dreamhost without any problems. Additionally, you can add cron-jobs, set your preferred command line editor, look an man pages; anything you could do on a linux box sitting right next to you. Sweetness.

Dreamhost also provides alot of bandwidth, diskspace, email; all that good stuff you look for in a host. The best part is that each month they increase the bandwidth and diskspace. Along the same lines they have a suggestions section where you can vote for features to be added to your hosting account. Dreamhost asks the customers what they want instead of guessing; I wonder why more companies don’t do this, it makes so much sense.

One of my favorite ‘features’ is dreamhost’s incredible knowledge base and wiki set that contains useful information about the ins and outs of their hosting service. This is very cool, instead of having to email their support team most of the time you can find answers to most of your questions through either the k-base or the wiki, an awesome time saver.

Referrals are another great thing about dreamhost. You get $100 for everybody who signs up with dreamhost using your user id, I dont think many hosts have a good as referral program as that. (if your going to sign up for dreamhost I would very much appreciate it if you signed up using my user id, iloveitaly, as the refferal id)

Overall dreamhost is an awesome host, its lived up the reputation that it has on the web. But, there were a few things I didn’t really like about their hosting:

• If you access your email with an email client (which most computer users do) you have to this cryptic login name.
• Each mysql database must have its own hostname. This is very annoying, if you have 5 mysql databases you must have 5 different hostnames listed in your connection list for your favorite mysql database editor (mine being YourSQL).
• One-click installs aren’t really one-click installs

So, thats my mini review of dreamhost. Hopefully someone who is contemplating using dreamhost will find it useful.