DreamHost is an outstanding website hosting company to choose if you’re a creative professional who wants to build a website on WordPress. But if you don’t care about WordPress, cheaper competitors exist.
For
Outstanding WordPress support
Fast performance
Against
Relatively expensive
No free email address on the cheapest plan
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Every creative professional needs a website to impress potential clients, to serve as an online resume, or to sell products and services. There are thousands of web hosting providers from which to choose, and DreamHost has been in business for over 20 years.
But does it deserve to be on our list of the best web hosting for creatives? In our DreamHost review, we assess its pricing, features, interface, and support, so you can decide whether it’s the right choice for you.
DreamHost: Plans and pricing
DreamHost’s two main plans – Starter and Unlimited – are shared hosting, which means your website will be given space on the same server as other DreamHost sites. There are more expensive plans if you want your own server, but the shared options should be sufficient for most small or medium creative businesses.
The Starter plan costs $2.59/month if you commit to a three-year contract, $3.95/month for one year, or $4.95 monthly. The Unlimited plan costs $3.95/month for one year or more, or $8.95 monthly.
The Starter plan only allows you to have one website, whereas you can have as many as you want with Unlimited, which also includes email accounts for your domain. With Starter, you’ll have to pay an additional $1.67/month to add email. There’s also a storage limit of 50GB on the Starter plan, though this is more than enough for most sites.
These are all good prices, and a big positive is that unlike competitors such as Bluehost, there’s no increase in cost when it comes to renewal. Plus, there’s a 97-day money-back guarantee – a much longer period than average.
DreamHost: Key features
By default, all WordPress plans get unlimited bandwidth and storage, a free domain name, a free SSL certificate (the traffic between your website and visitors is encrypted), instant WordPress setup, and free privacy protection. DreamHost doesn’t charge you extra to hide your personal information from domain name lookups.
WP Website Builder
DreamHost recently added a new website builder that’s available for free on all plans. You can use it to build a website from scratch without touching a line of code. You choose a template from the 200 that are available and then drag and drop different features onto each of your pages.
You can quickly build a WordPress portfolio site by choosing from the available template designs (Image credit: DreamHost)
WooCommerce
If you plan on selling products and services through your site, you need e-commerce software. At DreamHost, the easiest way to do this is to use WooCommerce, which is essentially a WordPress plugin that changes your WordPress site into an online store. DreamHost’s WooCommerce hosting is one of the best, with fast speeds, guaranteed uptime, and powerful caching features that will make your store perform better for your visitors.
Automated WordPress migrations
If you have a current WordPress website hosted somewhere else, you can use the free DreamHost Automated Migration plugin tool to transfer it effortlessly to your new DreamHost hosting. If you choose a managed WordPress plan, you can get support from WordPress experts to help you get your website up and running on DreamHost.
DreamHost: Interface
Manage all your websites through the DreamHost management panel (Image credit: DreamHost)
Many web hosting services use the cPanel system for backend control, but DreamHost has its own interface. This may put off experienced web designers used to cPanel, especially because it lacks a few of that system’s more advanced features (and you can’t easily import sites exported from cPanel), but it actually has a nicer, more modern design.
There are many options, so it requires some getting used to for newcomers, but the efficient layout makes it easy to find what you’re looking for. On the pages for more technical procedures, there are links to knowledge base explanations.
DreamHost: Support
DreamHost’s website includes a substantial knowledge base, which includes solutions to many technical problems that you may encounter. If you need to get in touch with their support, you have two options: web chat or email. The support is knowledgeable and efficient, but the live chat is only available from 5:30 AM to 9:30 PM Pacific time, which isn’t ideal for customers outside the US. When it’s unavailable, you’re restricted to the ticket support, which is considerably slower.
DreamHost: Is it right for you?
If you plan on building your website using WordPress, DreamHost is a fantastic choice. As one of the few hosts officially recommended by WordPress.org, DreamHost offers a complete environment for building a great WordPress website, big or small. With the introduction of Wp Website Builder, DreamHost now has a way for users to quickly put together a portfolio or resume website in a matter of minutes, without touching a line of code.
Managed WordPress hosting and e-commerce plans are quite expensive at DreamHost, though, so if you plan on selling products in the future, factor that into your decision. DreamHost is also focused on the WordPress platform, so if you want to use other software to build your website, you might want to look elsewhere.
DreamHost is an outstanding website hosting company to choose if you’re a creative professional who wants to build a website on WordPress. But if you don’t care about WordPress, cheaper competitors exist.
Richard brings over 20 years of website development, SEO, and marketing to the table. A graduate in Computer Science, Richard has lectured in Java programming, and has built software for companies including Samsung and ASDA. Now, he writes for TechRadar, Tom's Guide, PC Gamer and Creative Bloq.
