DreamHost web hosting
Ranked 3 of 6 web hosts by recommenders
Recommended for cheap, steady shared hosting that runs many small sites and offers built-in Let's Encrypt. Common caveat: renewals cost more and mailing lists were dropped.
Recommended for cheap, steady shared hosting that runs many small sites and offers built-in Let's Encrypt. Common caveat: renewals cost more and mailing lists were dropped.
27 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- criticize it
- 11
- approval share
- 59%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 20 years
Median of the 10 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Reliable for years of use
“never had any complaints, I have over 15 domains with them. Not the cheapest, but they have been steady.”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “Namecheap just seized and disabled all my domains” “It's cheap and reliable with predictable costs. It hasn't caused me any problems in a decade.”
Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset” “they have been an exceptionally solid company that I have worked with”
Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset” - Comment from 10 May 2026 in “I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left”
- Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset”
Runs many small sites
“I've been able to host my personal blog and professional site, as well as probably 3 dozen other sites over the years”
Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset” “never had any complaints, I have over 15 domains with them. Not the cheapest, but they have been steady.”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “Namecheap just seized and disabled all my domains” “I love their shared hosting; I have a $100/year account with dozens of little low traffic apps”
Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset” Cheap, predictable pricing
“I love their shared hosting; I have a $100/year account with dozens of little low traffic apps”
Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset” “It's cheap and reliable with predictable costs. It hasn't caused me any problems in a decade.”
Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset” “Great value, no real complaints.”
Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset” Built-in free Let's Encrypt
“they had a configuration option in their control panel to automatically install and maintain a Let's Encrypt certificate on your behalf”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “10 Years of Let's Encrypt” “they literally have a button on the panel to get one from Let's Encrypt for free”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “10 Years of Let's Encrypt”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Email lists dropped, email support poor
“Chat support works well. Email is nonexistent.”
Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset” “they no longer provide the services (i.e. mailman) to run mailing lists”
Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset” “They abandoned all support for email lists a couple of months back.”
Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset” Renewal and dedicated IP costs high
“$21.99 to renew a dot com. Way too much.”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “Namecheap just seized and disabled all my domains” “I could not believe what the hell they were charging for a year of hosting with a dedicated ip”
Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset” Vague about security incident scope
“I would never expect first tier support to know, let alone ever admit, something like that.”
Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset” “being so unclear about scope and remediation steps is a painful mistake”
Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset” “They're being awfully vague about this issue so far.”
Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset” Panel slow and cluttered
“I've been a little unhappy with how much clutter and other crap they've added.”
Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “GoDaddy Gave a Domain to a Stranger Without Any Documentation” “their panel/website-management is so slow”
Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset”
Other web hosts people recommend
The four most recommended other web hosts, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neocities | 34 | 8 | 81% | 12 | — | Approved |
| NearlyFreeSpeech.net | 29 | 0 | 100% | 9 | 15 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| DreamHost web hostingThis page | 16 | 11 | 59% | 7 | 20 yrs10 owners | — |
| Mythic Beasts hosting | 8 | 2 | 80% | 3 | — | — |
| WP Engine | 6 | 12 | 33% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
30 of the 34 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“DH giving me no-root access to a hardened, performant box is ideal all around.”
“being so unclear about scope and remediation steps is a painful mistake”
“it was cheaper to move them to Cloudflare”
“DH patched all their PHP versions extremely quickly.”
“I love their shared hosting; I have a $100/year account with dozens of little low traffic apps”
“they have been an exceptionally solid company that I have worked with”
“this feels like amateur hour”
“their panel/website-management is so slow”
“I could not believe what the hell they were charging for a year of hosting with a dedicated ip”
“I would never expect first tier support to know, let alone ever admit, something like that.”
“felt validated from having made that decision”
“they no longer provide the services (i.e. mailman) to run mailing lists”
“I'm surprise they still let people use FTP.”
“Chat support works well. Email is nonexistent.”
“Pricing wise they don’t beat Herzner anymore but are somewhat competitive with Digital Ocean.”
“They're being awfully vague about this issue so far.”
“Great value, no real complaints.”
“They abandoned all support for email lists a couple of months back.”
“Working pretty well for me.”
“I've been able to host my personal blog and professional site, as well as probably 3 dozen other sites over the years”
“It's cheap and reliable with predictable costs. It hasn't caused me any problems in a decade.”
“Been a customer for decades, love them.”
“$21.99 to renew a dot com. Way too much.”
“never had any complaints, I have over 15 domains with them. Not the cheapest, but they have been steady.”
“smaller providers like Dreamhost, which I've been using for 20 years”
“I've been a little unhappy with how much clutter and other crap they've added.”
“I just got hit badly by Dreamhost, which is still running MySQL 8.0.”
“getting web hosting from Dreamhost or Hetzner”
“they literally have a button on the panel to get one from Let's Encrypt for free”
“they had a configuration option in their control panel to automatically install and maintain a Let's Encrypt certificate on your behalf”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.