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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Posts
    73

    I'd like to reccomend a host that I think is just great.

    I hope that's alright with everyone, I'm pretty sure this could help people.

    I'd like to reccomend DreamHost, don't be put off by the girl in the leather skirt! They're really good.

    I signed up with them for a year plan and have been meaning to write a post like this ever since.

    DreamHost have a custom-written control panel, I know it isn't cpanel but don't be put off by this! It's far, far, FAR better than cpanel. You can see a demo of it here: http://dreamhost.com/panel/

    Here are a few of the features that I haven't found anywhere else:

    Suggestions - This is part of the control panel and it's great, not just an e-mail to the host where you can suggest they add a feature / fix something. A full blown system for suggestions. You make a suggestion and it gets added to the list, the admins there rate it on how hard it might be to implement (1-5) and you (and everyone else) is given 20 credits to vote on the features you'd like to see implemented. It's incredibly simple but also brillaint.

    User Management - This is really great, none of this cpanel nonsense (where the users dir's are in the root dir?!) you can have full blown seperate virtual domains and everything. Shell accounts? Of course you can have shell accounts! Why not?

    That's what's great about dreamhost, no unneccesary limitations like some other hosts, they give you everything they can and don't charge for something that wouldn't cost them a penny.

    Wiki - There's a wiki where users can post guides and other things for dreamhost users. This is the first host i've seen to do it and it's a brilliant idea.

    OK, There's more, but I can't remember it all right now, you should really go check it out yourselves

    One last thing: This is what pushed me to come here and type this, they just e-mailed me (ooh that's another thing, none of this official / formal bollocks or this 12 year old kid pink writing + smiley faces style e-mails, they have a perfect level in between, informal but serious and entertaining at the same time) to tell me that every month they'll be adding 80mb of HDD space to my plan and 1GB of Bandwidth, that's every month, so in ten months time i'll have an additional 800mb of hdd space and 10gb of bandwidth. Marvelous!

    The admins really sound like they know what they're doing (I know the PHP setup is damn secure, at least). So, yeah, if you're unsure, DreamHost get my thumbs up!

    http://dreamhost.com/

    PS: I'm genuinely not a dreamhost employee, nor am I getting money for reffering you (although they do offer that, I've avoided it so you guys don't think this isn't genuine )

    Hope this helps someone!
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  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Location
    New York
    Posts
    1,156
    That's great review and obviously they've done good job I think that every hosting provider that takes it's business seriously must think about developing it's own hosting management software.

    Best Regards
    D.
    DawHB.com - Web Hosting Blog | VPSHostDir.com - VPS Hosting Media
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  3. #3
    Good job _rse !

    If your hosting company gives you good support then you should also support them with such good reviews.
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  4. #4
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Location
    Texas
    Posts
    154
    There's not many companies that offer their own control panel - They must be an established company which loves its customers to provide them with only the best!
    DDoS Protected Chicago and New York Virtual Private Servers with INSTANT setup!
    RAID-10 OpenVZ Virtual Private Servers with hundreds of OS templates!
    CometVPS.com - We're all about customer experience. Try us!
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  5. #5
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    127.0.0.1
    Posts
    3,642
    .... and they only recently started supporting Zend Optimizer on their servers, too.
    Simpli Networks, LLC :: http://www.simplinetworks.com :: Proudly 100% Owned.
    Providing Affordable Managed Cloud/VPS Servers & Server Management Solutions.
    We offer REAL 24x7x365 in-house support - proudly serving our customers since 2005!
    Want to learn more? Give us a call - +1 (844) 4SIMPLI or email sales[@]simplinetworks.com today!
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  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Northern Europe.
    Posts
    2,573
    Very nice review there! I am one of DreamHost's happy customers myself. If I weren't so darn lazy, I would have written a review like the above myself....
    Web Hosting Reviews — based on real customer feedback
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  7. #7
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    EU - east side
    Posts
    21,920
    _rse, it sounds to me that like couldn't be any happier than you already are, and your review sure provides a lot of info that a propective customer might be interested in. Well done!

    May we know a site that you host with DreamHost?
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  8. #8
    i'd personally go with them if they offered dedicated ip addresses as part of the package. they charge $4.95 extra/month for this!
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  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Fallbrook, CA
    Posts
    12
    This seems like a good host. And to think that my current host only gives 1/3 the bandwith for the same price! Great review and you sound really happy with DreamHost.

    I saw a negative thread about it, though. They said their site was down, but I have a feeling they just got banned for a short time from too many login attempts or w/e.
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  10. #10
    rse, well you should write appreciation letter to them, as they can add with their testimonials. After long time I am going through such good review.
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  11. #11
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Posts
    379
    I've been with dreamhost for a short while, i was impressed they are honest and solid company in all terms, they have the ability to actually give the great features they are offering in thier plans and stand behind them.


    The only four drawbacks i found were : (maybe it changed since i was their client about year ago)


    1. Limited Frongpage support....
    http://www.dreamhost.com/panel/featu...age_extensions

    2. I remember when you set up email account you can't select the name of the account, it's auto assigned to something like X$V#AAS#%^ and that could be annoying, specially when you configure clients.


    3. They have high set up fee(50$) , if you don't sign for a year.


    4. Their support might be fast for a company of their size but compare to other hosts they are slow, don't expect tickets to be
    solved in less than few hours, they are, however answer politely and clearly usually solving the problem.


    Again, this was all a year ago, since then thing might have changed.
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  12. #12
    Join Date
    Sep 2000
    Location
    Alberta, Canada
    Posts
    3,146
    It's a shame the thread starter never included the Domain name being hosted, makes the review much less reliable.

    every month they'll be adding 80mb of HDD space to my plan and 1GB of Bandwidth

    I would think something like that should start ringing all kinds of alarm bells. On a per Server basis with only 100 accounts on a Server -- we can presume there are probably lots more than 100 -- that is an increase of 8 GB of Web space per month or 96 GB per year; not to mention 100 GB of extra Data transfer "per month"!

    Sounds unsubstainable to me unless they found some of those 'unlimited' hard drives and data pipes.
    Last edited by Website Rob; 07-08-2005 at 09:04 AM.
    PotentProducts.com - for all your Hosting needs
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  13. #13
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Chicago, IL USA
    Posts
    1,430
    Its so nice to hear good things, instead of all the bad we so often read. I used DreamHost many years ago - back when InterNic was the only place you could purchase domain names! (showing my age). DreamHost was great then and it sounds like they still are. Cool
    ||| Mike Bowers - Marketing Director
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  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    Internet
    Posts
    1,805
    _rse

    Nice well written review and feedback. Thanks for sharing this and giving back to hosting community.

    Cheers
    <<snipped>><<snipped>>
    why?
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  15. #15
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    North Carolina, USA
    Posts
    174
    They seem to be overselling alot, but hey, what host doesn't?

    I've sent them some inquiries, maybe these guys will be my future hosts. If so, I'll come back here and tell WHT how it went...
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  16. #16
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Posts
    32
    Originally posted by webbist101

    I've sent them some inquiries, maybe these guys will be my future hosts. If so, I'll come back here and tell WHT how it went...
    Hey, please do. I didn't like some of the reviews I saw before. But I'm getting curious about this host again.

    The search goes on.....
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  17. #17
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    127.0.0.1
    Posts
    3,642
    Originally posted by ldcdc
    May we know a site that you host with DreamHost?
    Dan, personally - I'd give him a little bit more credit than that, seeing as he's been a member for the past year (this month, actually!) and has a few other posts to his account name. This isn't exactly the 1 post wonders that we're so weary of.
    Last edited by mripguru; 07-08-2005 at 02:34 PM.
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  18. #18
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    127.0.0.1
    Posts
    3,642
    Originally posted by sgizero
    Hey, please do. I didn't like some of the reviews I saw before. But I'm getting curious about this host again.

    The search goes on.....
    DreamHost is alright, if your not doing anything too intensive or don't rely on your domain for e-mail too much. (Actually, there's a whole other thread about how DreamHost got one of their servers hacked and didn't do anything about it (that we know of). However, I was hosted by them for a few months and I had consistent e-mail issues and whenever I contacted support about it - the response came in no less than 24 hours (usually overnight, and responses on a ticket were about the same). I've since moved my own site to Site5 (off-network from my own servers, etc.) and have been happy as a clam ever since.

    Dan, if you want to verify - you can look up www.slivko.org.

    -- Jonathan
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  19. #19
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Waco, TX
    Posts
    389
    They sound like a great host, I especially like the suggestion system...
    Here's another domain that uses DreamHost: http://www.halobabies.net
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  20. #20
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Posts
    32
    Hi Jonathan,

    Thanks for sharing your review. May I ask if you had any technical or billing problems during that time? If you did, how was the support handled, e.g. quick, slow, friendly, useful, effective, any escalation?

    Thanks in advance.
    Sgizero
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  21. #21
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    127.0.0.1
    Posts
    3,642
    Originally posted by sgizero
    Hi Jonathan,

    Thanks for sharing your review. May I ask if you had any technical or billing problems during that time? If you did, how was the support handled, e.g. quick, slow, friendly, useful, effective, any escalation?

    Thanks in advance.
    Sgizero
    Yes to both. I had many issues regarding e-mail (SpamAssassin being broken, mail being delayed for a day or more, etc.) and some site unavailability (server wasn't down, just Apache was broken), not to mention their control panel flooding my e-mail box a few times a week.

    As for billing issues, I had those too - they tried to charge me for a domain that I didn't even purchase through them that I brought with me. (I never buy domains from the same place I get the hosting, it just makes good sense to do that in the event that you have to move). That's also how they keep you, because their control panel is set up in such a way that you have to migrate everything out manually, etc. and it's a pain - so you'd rather stick with them and not have the pain of moving all of your files, mail, etc. Another thing is that their billing department is pretty much run on autopilot (meaning it's all automated) and there's only human intervention if there's an issue that a customer reports. The issue, when I reported it to DreamHost took over 24 hours to get a response and then another day or so in a back and forth PROVING to them that I had bought and paid for the domain elsewhere and that they shouldn't be charging me for it. At one point, the rep that was handling this matter told me "I've never seen anything like this before" and that it's impossible for this to happen.

    Don't get me wrong, they're not bad people/hosts (for the most part) - but they definately need work. However, the people there are great (for the most part, I can think of once instance that was handled less than professionally).

    For the $9 and change for the year that I paid, I didn't expect much - but I actually got more than I was expecting - but not by much.
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  22. #22
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Location
    Florida
    Posts
    902
    Talk about timing. Check out this thread: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...hreadid=380055

    EDIT -- disregard. It is an old thread that somebody revived.
    Last edited by Dacsoft; 07-08-2005 at 06:49 PM.
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  23. #23
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    North Carolina, USA
    Posts
    174
    Originally posted by sgizero
    Hey, please do. I didn't like some of the reviews I saw before. But I'm getting curious about this host again.

    The search goes on.....
    Well, they answered my questions promptly and I got the response I wanted to hear (allowing image hosts), but unfortunately I didn't see that they charged a $50 setup-fee which I wasn't willing to pay... Oh well, still on the look I suppose...
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  24. #24
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    EU - east side
    Posts
    21,920
    Dan, personally - I'd give him a little bit more credit than that, seeing as he's been a member for the past year (this month, actually!) and has a few other posts to his account name. This isn't exactly the 1 post wonders that we're so weary of.
    I definitely agree with you, and that's why I didn't pass a negative judgement on his review. However, because the rules mention nothing about giving credit, I often ask that question. In the end, it helps the everyone, as mentioning a site adds value to the review.
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  25. #25
    Join Date
    Sep 2000
    Location
    Alberta, Canada
    Posts
    3,146
    Gotta agree with Dan, on the creditability issue.

    How often does someone brag about the new " whatever " they got without also wanting to show it?

    If someone is so happy with their Hoster they make a post and brag about them but no mention of what Domain is being hosted with them, then IMHO all creditability is lost -- regardless of post count.
    PotentProducts.com - for all your Hosting needs
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