Any comments on DreamHost?

I'm considering switching over to DreamHost, since they seem to offer much more than my current host, for not much more money.

Any comments on their service from current users? Or maybe recommendation of other good hosting companies? Thanks!

Eeek! Thanks for the heads up!

Ignore Edwin! (Or at least keep the linked thread in proper proportion).

I have been on DreamHost for a few months and have been pleased. I know ColdForged uses DreamHost and its merits have been discussed here (if your site isn't high traffic, it's a good choice). I used ColdForged's little referral code for a great deal, perfectly ideal for hosting a few personal/low-ish traffic sites. A number of other GWJers use it too.

I've been trying to find out more about them, and it seems like they went through a huge growth spur in 2005-06, where they didn't have the capacity to support all the new users. Legion, if you're using them now, can you say how they've been doing recently? Do they have good uptime, reliable email, etc.?

Any no, I'm not thinking of a high-traffic site. Just my personal web page and email.

Uptime has been excellent, email has been reasonably reliable. I access two IMAP accounts from my cell phone for "push" email, it could be a little zippier but I haven't had problems with long outages or lost mail or anything of that sort.

For what it's worth, I use JaguarPC.com. I have been with them for 4 or 5 years and have never had a problem. Most of my support tickets (configuration changes mostly) are completed within 30 minutes.

A much belated reply:

I've been with them over a year and I'm happy with their service, reliability and most of all, value. Lots and lots of space, bandwidth and goodies, for cheap. Their support Wiki is excellent for DIY support, and most of my other concerns have been addressed relatively quickly.

BUT - I do need to remember to get a backup of my site soon...just in case.

Dreamhost just recently had a giant failure with many of their websites. A friend of mine runs a site called Story Games, hosted at Dreamhost. His site was down for a couple of days due to problems arising from a planned power outage.

http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2007/...

http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2007/...

http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2007/...

Yup - I was aware of that, and suffered no ill effects. I don't get enough traffic to my site to warrant use of a dedicated server, so this type of outage window hasn't really affected me. As has already been discussed, if your site isn't high-traffic, they're a good choice. If it is high-traffic, you should probably look to a dedicated server, etc.

I think when I reach the point of needing a dedicated server for my site, I'll end up running it myself....

Dreamhost is a good deal if:

1) You're not corporate

2) You have some knowledge of what you're doing

3) You don't plan on IGN-level of traffic

Chuck Palahniuk's site the Cult is completely on Dreamhost, and I do believe they get a respectable amount of traffic. Since my friend (who helped build and admins the site) still suggests Dreamhost, I have to assume that the experience has been satisfactory.

And the price is right, too.

At the risk of sounding like a raging fanboy, I would walk through fire for HostDime.com

I've been with them now for 6 years, starting with the cheapest package, to now I have a machine sitting in their racks (it's the one the Teamspeak server is on). They are not the absolute dirt cheapest in the universe, however, they're stability is top notch and they never rip you off. But the customer service is freakign AMAZING.

I have never, ever waited on hold with them. I have never had someone on the other end of the phone who didn't know what they were talking about. They never treat you like your an idiot, nor do they expect you to know everything there is to know. They've performed memory upgrades at 2AM on a sunday for me. They've walked me through restoring software that I screwed up. They've helped me tune my database installation. They helped me kick off some spammers. And they've never charged me a penny over what I pay every year.

There, done. Hostdime.com