Update, Sep 16: There’s more to this story. After you read this post, be sure to read I Leave DreamHost, DreamHost Leaves Me… (Almost) Speechless. Also, see How to Find a Web Host That Doesn’t Suck
DreamHost is a popular web host among bloggers. With accounts beginning at only $7.95 a month, featuring generous disk space and bandwidth, they seem to offer a lot of bang for the buck. I’ve read numerous glowing reviews about DreamHost around the web, several from blogs that I read frequently. So when I moved Futurosity to DreamHost from GoDaddy about three months ago, I was excited. But things were rocky from the start and, after three months of the worst web hosting service I have experienced in over ten years of publishing on the web, I’m glad to be taking my business elsewhere. DreamHost was a nightmare host. Here’s why…
Note: If you still want to try DreamHost—and some people swear by them (and some people swear at them)—click here. Use the code FUTUROSITY and you’ll even get a $50 discount! But don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Upstart Blogger recommends AN Hosting. 250 GB disk space, 2.5 TB transfer, and a free domain for life. AN Hosting, only $6.95/mo!
The Short Version
Service Issues
In my short time with DreamHost, I experienced mail problems, database problems, site outages, and slow performance. See The Long Version below.
Support Issues
When I reported my site down, DreamHost usually responded within a short period of time. But when I complained about general service issues, it sometimes took more than 24 hours. Most of the general service issues were met with unhelpful responses. I don’t think they even read all of my messages (they couldn’t have read my message asking them to confirm my eligibility for a refund, because they cancelled my account—see The Long Version below).
No Phone Support
DreamHost doesn’t offer any phone support unless you pay for one of their more expensive plans. Even when you’re pulling your hair out and it’s their fault, don’t expect to speak with a live person to make things better. They claim to offer Live Chat, but in my experience it was never available.
Misleading Money-Back Guarantee
DreamHost plasters their site with their 97-Day Money Back Guarantee. When I looked at it in Safari, here’s what I saw:
I didn’t see the fine print (there’s more to the text, but I didn’t get any scroll bars in Safari, so I didn’t see this: “* Excludes domain registration fees and dedicated server payments. Credit card payments only.”).
You have to read the fine print or the Terms of Service (who reads these things?!) to realize that the guarantee is only valid if you pay by credit card. I’m not sure why that should make a difference. Maybe because they don’t want to get into trouble with the credit card companies.
I did manage to get a refund, even though I’d paid with PayPal (see The Long Version below). I guess I was lucky.
My advice: if you decide to go with DreamHost, pay with a credit card!
Generous Referral Fees
DreamHost will pay you $97 for referring someone to DreamHost. That’s great if you’re happy with DreamHost and your referrals are happy with DreamHost. I went with DreamHost because I kept seeing it on blogs I enjoyed. Be suspicious of anyone who refers you to DreamHost. Not to impugn the integrity of those bloggers, but $97 will buy you a lot of loyalty.
Vulnerable Network
DreamHost was down for most of September 12th because of the blackout in Los Angeles, where their data center is located. Their backup generators failed. This is the message on their support site today:
Currently, we’re having a new issue with our core router dropping a lot of packets, which is causing severe network latency for a number of our customers. We’re actively looking into this now, preliminarily it looks like one of the two (redundant) CPUs may be dying, quite possibly related to the power outage yesterday.
I don’t mean to kick them when they’re down. This kind of bad luck can happen to anyone.
Badder Business
Well, they’re certainly not Better Business. Here’s the Better Business Bureau’s rating: F.
There are 7 unanswered complaints filed against them (there are no answered complaints; in other words, they just ignore the complaints).
Note: While DreamHost was rated F at the time I wrote the original post, I’ve been informed by an irate reader that this has now changed. As of 4.23.07, DreamHost had a B rating. Read the current report.
My experience with DreamHost was the worst experience I’ve ever had with a hosting company. Contrast that with Hosting ZOOM [I've since moved to AN Hosting]. I’m not ready to give them my endorsement (I’ll post an update after I’ve been with them for three months or so), but so far my experience has been vastly superior. I’ve chatted several times with support using Live Chat; they have almost always been available and have always been helpful. I spoke with tech support on the phone(!). My performance is also much improved. My SiteScore now reports Excellent Speed, whereas when I had DreamHost it was never better than Good [Update: SiteScore no longer reports speed, but is still worth a look.] (you can also test your site at WebSite Pulse).
Note: If you still want to try DreamHost—and some people swear by them (and some people swear at them)—click here. Use the code FUTUROSITY and you’ll even get a $50 discount! But don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Upstart Blogger is served up by AN Hosting. 500 GB disk space, 5 TB transfer, and a free domain for life. AN Hosting, only $6.95/mo!
The Long Version
My account was activated on June 12, 2005.
My first service problems began on July 1st. My site was down, reporting a “bad_httpd_conf” error. When I reported the problem to DreamHost, I received this explanation:
I sincerely apologize for this outage. I am a system admistrator at DreamHost and this was caused by a typo I made while modifying out machine_mount database…
Okay, anyone can make a mistake. It’s interesting, though, that DreamHost’s support form includes this issue in its popup list. Do a search on Google for “bad_httpd_conf” and see how many entries are related to DreamHost.
On July 5th, I reported that my site was down again, this time with a message that the database was unavailable. When it did work, it was very slooooooow. Response:
It is likely that your shared database server had user on it with a run away database which was causing slowdowns and an eventual lockout of database connections. Our systems administrators will keep a close eye on it to try and make sure this doesn’t happen in the future.
Later that same day, I reported that my site was still extremely slow, sometimes taking as long as 10 or 15 seconds for the page to load. I provided a traceroute at their request. Response:
I restarted the webserver and tested and it seems to be loading faster for me at this time.
On July 15th, my email stopped working. I couldn’t send anything. A number of other users reported similar problems in the DreamHost forum. Response:
A couple of our SMTP servers are having intermittent problems with the daemon which authenticates users via SMTP. Our developers are looking into the problem, and have been trying some new code, but as of yet have not been able to pinpoint the problem.
On August 9th, my site went down again. Database problems again. Response:
Our apologies for the delay. We had to reboot your machine to resolve the problem.
On August 10th, I wrote a lengthier email outlining my dissatisfaction with their service, including continuing problems with speed (it would often take several seconds just for their server to respond). “I’m tempted to just move my domain now,” I wrote, “but DreamHost is recommended by several sites that I respect (probably because of your generous referral fees). So, I want to give you another chance.”
Almost 28 hours go by, so I write again: “Hello? No response?”
About an hour and a half later, this response:
Your dissatisfaction is understandable. However, I am not quite at liberty to say that this problem will never surface again. I have escalated this to our Level 2 queue as the issue seems to be something that needs further looking into.
A little over an hour later:
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, we’ve been a little bit busy around here lately. [I'd hate to see what their service is like when they're a lot busy.] At any rate, I understand that having two mysql outages in the two months that you’ve been with us is less than stellar performance. I’ll credit your account for two free domain registrations.
What followed was a series of polite email exchanges with a fellow named Brian, who seemed to be taking a genuine interest in looking out for me. And things did improve marginally, for a while. I had a problem with WebDav that was my fault—my .htaccess file for Textpattern was screwing things up. They identified the problem in short order. I thanked them for troubleshooting the problem for me. I was feeling warm and fuzzy. Maybe we’d turned a corner.
On September 8th, I reported my site down again. Database problems. Response:
Our admin team is on top of it and will be bringing the MySQL machine back up momentarily. Your patience is appreciated.
That was the last straw for me (note that these are only the problems I knew about; I don’t know how many times my site was down and I didn’t know it). I started reading forums and reviews to see if I was the only one having problems like this. I found numerous complaints about DreamHost. Someone wrote that they wouldn’t refund your money if you paid by PayPal, though they tout their 97-day Money Back Guarantee everywhere on their site.
On September 9th, I wrote asking them to confirm that I could get a refund, considering all the problems I’d experienced and how confusing their site was (you have to be extremely careful to read the fine print and the Terms of Service), even though I’d paid with PayPal. “Please confirm that you will refund my money so I can move my site to another host,” I wrote, “then I will notify you to cancel my account. Or, please have someone call me…”
Response: An explanation of all the fine print, disclaimers, TOS. AND THEN THEY CANCELLED MY ACCOUNT!
I wrote them twice telling them I did not cancel my account, to reinstate it. I had already been scheming my revenge. If they didn’t give me a refund, I would register ihatedreamhost.com (dreamhostsucks.com is already registered to someone else and hosted by DreamHost; it’s redirected to their home page) and host the site on their servers until the money ran out, detailing my tale of woe on the site as long as they held me hostage. As soon as they canceled the account, I began looking for another host, eventually moving it to Hosting ZOOM. Still, my site and my email were down for the better part of two days because of DreamHost.
They reinstated the account. I sent a message asking that someone please call me. I wanted to talk to a live person. Response:
Unfortunately your account does not come with phone support so I will not be giving you a call about this issue.
You would think at this point that someone might want to call to apologize, to inquire about the problems I’d had.
And then I woke up… It was all just a bad Dream(Host).
On September 13th they did, finally, refund my money, crediting my PayPal account. I guess I should be thankful for that.
Update, Sep.16.05: There’s more to this story. After you read this post, be sure to read I Leave DreamHost, DreamHost Leaves Me… (Almost) Speechless. Also, see How to Find a Web Host That Doesn’t Suck
Note: If you still want to try DreamHost—and some people swear by them (and some people swear at them)—click here. Use the code FUTUROSITY and you’ll even get a $50 discount! But don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Upstart Blogger is served up by AN Hosting. 500 GB disk space, 5 TB transfer, and a free domain for life. AN Hosting, only $6.95/mo!
While it is certainly true, that some percentage of sites need all the bandwidth and storage nearly ever hosting company offers today, I’ve had much lower requirements, and I suspect that the majority of our fellow bloggers would be better off with a slimmer and cheaper hosting plan.
At least this was my point of view when I was window shopping for a shared hosting offer.
After some research, I’ve signed LiveHost’s Bronze plan which costs me 15 USD per year.
Most satisfying experience so far: All of my support questions were answered in a matter of minutes, customer service is great and responsive.
Most bloggers probably don’t need more than a few GB in bandwidth. But you also want to allow yourself room to grow :-)
I had such a terrible time with Dreamhost. After being a Dreamhost customer for 5 years, I wanted to cancel my account. After a miscommunication due to an out of date e-mail address, my account was suspended. In good faith I paid my $119 to Dreamhost expecting all of my websites, mailing lists, and emails to be there and back to normal. Well, everything was gone. This happened to me twice! When I attempted to cancel my account the very same day that I paid, they said that their “97 day money back gaurantee” was based on the day I opened my account FIVE YEARS AGO and not the day I paid for my next year of service! Instead of giving me back my money for the 10 months I didn’t use, they offered me Dreamhost CREDIT! What am I going to do with hosting credit when I don’t even want a website anymore?
Your experience sounds similar to mine. DreamHost just doesn’t seem to get it. If they’ll only give you credit, use it on a site that tells your story of how bad they are and promote your new host (you could try Hosting Zoom). But then they probably won’t send you flowers!
I just signed up, I’m doing a day-by-day review as I use them.
Anthony, I wish you the best of luck. I’ll be interested to see how things go for you.
Sandra, sorry to hear you’re having problems with DreamHost. Any host can be slow from time to time, but it was a chronic problem for me when I was with them. It’s been a couple of months now since I switched to Hosting ZOOM and I can honestly say that I’ve been very happy with them. Performance is good and I’ve have no problems that weren’t my fault.
You complain about the loyalty that affiliate links give Dreamhost and then repeatedly link to your own affiliate account with HostingZOOM!
If you want to provide an honest and genuine review, you shouldn’t colour it by affiliate linking to a rival of the subject.
There’s no reason for most people, especially bloggers, to need the bandwidth advertised by most web hosts. This site gets a respectable amount of traffic and I will probably use less than a gig of bandwidth this month.
But ALL shared web hosts will have some resource limitations in their TOS or AUP (Acceptable Use Policy). What you’ve described certainly seems extreme.
Here are the resource limitations in Hosting ZOOM’s AUP (as I write this; be sure to read the current TOS if you decide to sign up with them):
8.Resource Abuse.
You agree to not use excessive amounts of resources. Any violations may result in us taking corrective action in order maintain server stability by killing any processes, disabling and/or suspending your account.
8.1Shared hosting accounts may not run more than 24 simultaneous processes, runs for longer than 45 CPU seconds, or use more than 48 megs of memory. Databases are limited to 24 max user connections.
L@@K – NEVER BUY Hosting Service From DREAMHOST.com
Hello,
Last 3 months I bought a hosting service 1 year for $119.40. They gave me 120GB bandwidth each month. However, you will never be able to use all of them, even 1/2 of them. They never told me about it, and it is only tiny part in their TOS. It’s talking about CPU.
Your site only can use 2,400 seconds of CPU each day. You can’t use over it otherwise your account will be closed and your money is lost.
Please take a look at my math about their CPU…
– I have 120GB bandwidth per moth. – My CPU per day is 7,768.00 seconds (130 minutes). – With 7,768 seconds (130 minutes)—> I lost 3GB bandwidth per day. – 3GB x 30 days = 90GB bandwidth. So, I stil have 30GB nonused bandwidth everymonth.————————————————————-
However,
With 40 Minutes (also means 2,400 seconds), how much bandwidth I will
lost?
Let SEE: – With 130 Minutes—————————How much bandwidth I will
lost ??GB
So, with 40 minutes I will loose almost 1GB bandwidh per day(?)
With almost 1GB per day x 30 days = I will only use 30GB per month when I have 120GB limit permonth. (???)
Sound doesn’t fair, does it?
——————————————————————
I edit and test my site everyday from 3 to 6 hours. With that time, 40 minutes which YOU gave me will be used by only me.
————————————————————————
SO WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THEIR SERVICE? THEY OFFER HUGE BANDWIDTH, BUT THEY NEVER ALLOW YOU TO USE ALL OF THEM.
THEY HAVE A FORUM WHERE CUSTOMER OR GUEST CAN VIEW ABOUT THEIR SERVICE AND POST AN ANSWER…HOWEVER, ONLY GOOD FEEDBACK WILL BE KEFT…OTHERS WILL BE DELETED. THE MATH ABOVE I POSTED IN THEIR FORUM AND IT HAS BEEN DELETED 4 TIMES.
SHOULD YOU BUY FROM THEM?
MY SITE IS http://WWW.PHIMNGUOILON.NET HAS BEEN SHUTDOWN AS WELL SINCE ITS BANDWIDTH WAS OVER 2,400.
Well, i read about 50% of your text and comments. Well i am going to start with dreamhost but when i read this well i don’t know.
I have this great promotion codes and their are very good by their plans.
Probably i start with them.
I want to move them my page:
http://www.guistyles.com
I search more about this :
http://www.hostingzoom.com
Thanks for your comment, Peter. Good luck with DreamHost. You might be one of the lucky ones and not have any problems.
BTW, your site looks interesting!
Thanx, well like i said i will try them. On the net they are many good opinion about them. The thing that consider me is the speed of working.
But will see.
Well i said in this way.
I will try with DreamHost, because they promo codes are great so the money is small, also i have this time that i could have money back (well not that 10$ for domain).
So if the DreamHost will not be so good i will start with HostingZoom, i read about them, wow good hosting, seem to be very fast. But i get only 6 pages on them and i need more. But they are very good. I don’t like this 6 number but i think i could handle this.
So will see.
You’re not limited to 6 pages. You can host as many pages as you want. Hosting ZOOM will let you host up to 6 different domains in your account.
I wish you good luck. Changing hosts, moving your MySQL database, etc., is such a pain.
That’s an awful experience. We’ve used DreamHost for a while, and the support has been wonderful.
Today, I am experiencing this said slow down. Even DreamHost.com is inaccessible. I wonder what is going on.
For my personal website, I’m using Bluehost.com
. It’s well priced and well rated.
I’m not complaining about the loyalty that affiliate links give DreamHost; I’m just pointing out that $97 will buy you a lot of loyalty. Hosting ZOOM pays $40 for a referral. If I was doing this to make money from referrals, I would have gone with a more generous host. At the time I wrote this piece, I noted that “I’m not ready to give them [Hosting ZOOM] my endorsement,” and I disclose that “I’ll get $40 bucks for the referrral if you sign up. But I’ll be the first to let you know if they suck; you can’t buy me for $40 bucks (what kinda guy do you take me for?)!” And I will be the first to tell you if Hosting ZOOM goes bad.
I do consider this an honest and genuine review. I’m not wearing my journalistic hat when I post to Upstart Blogger (unlike when I’m writing for Macworld, for example). This is my personal site. These are my personal opinions. I don’t provide general reviews of hosting services, so I feel no obligation to maintain “objectivity.” I have enumerated the facts in this review and provided evidence of everything I’ve reported, including screenshots, quotes from my communications with DreamHost and a link to the Better Business Bureau. I wrote about DreamHost’s “reply” to this review. I haven’t censored anyone who wanted to recommend another host. If you host with DreamHost and have had a positive experience, feel free to post it here.
But DreamHost was my hosting nightmare and I have been very satisfied with Hosting ZOOM. So, if you’re looking for a host!
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I did read the terms and conditions. Anything as important as a Web host (especially if you value your site) requires that you fully understand what you are getting into. If you failed to read the terms and conditions and blindly followed the marketing hype, then you really have no right to complain. Go ahead and complain about the marketing hype, service levels, etc. but don’t complain about the terms and conditions to which you agreed without first understanding them.
You’d have more credibility if you weren’t shilling for both hosts repeatedly in this post with links that include your referal/reseller id indicating you are making money off anyone who buys either host.
Hi there!
I google’d that bad_httpd_conf problem and found this article. I used DreamHost two years ago and was so upset with their support. I ended up coming back, honestly believing they had improved… Yeah, I was there for a record 2 hours.
As a computer science student, I was completely shocked that, in order to access my email, I was forced to use a username like m8776498. I had paid $435 Canadian for a promotion package, there was no way in hell I was going to settle for something as disgusting as that.
Not to mention their support staff was anything but useful.
When I said “I understand this, I understand that,” apparently that meant “Even though I know about it already, please tell me about it so you can close your ticket right away, you poor excuse for help desk service”.
Not to mention their hardly moderated discussion forum subjected me to some smart-ass users. Apparently the fact that I’m unhappy with a retarded username I have to enter each time I format my computer means I do shady business on my computer. Yeah, uh, thanks for your useless input.
I was also screwed for that “free” $9.95 domain registration exclusion from the 97 day money-back guarentee. I wasn’t impressed with that, but relieved to get that refund and say goodbye to DreamHost forever.
Never again will I be tempted with the amazing offers they have.
DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THEIR TRICKERY!!
I don’t see where credibility is an issue. Since I get a referral fee if you decide to host with DreamHost, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to say nice things about them? If you still want to host with DreamHost after reading this, why isn’t it fair for me to get a little compensation, especially since I’m giving you a discount code (FUTUROSITY) which will save you $50, more than half of the $97 referral fee?
As for Hosting ZOOM, I clearly state in the post that “I’ll get $40 bucks for the referrral if you sign up.”
I’m just reporting my experience here. Make your own decision.
I’ll keep my comments short because I don’t want to come off like I’m advertising Dreamhost, but I’ve been a customer of theirs for 5+ years and have had nothing but a positive experience with them.
There was an issue a few years ago with email that was very bad, but other than that, I’ve been 100% happy with the service, features, and support.
After reading your post/review, I am not convinced DreamHost is for me. It’s hard to get reliable shared hosting for less. Everything you said about DreamHost is what I’m exactly looking for, I want sysadmins to be honest and tell me what’s going on, I want to be able to get a refund if I’m not satisfied (3 months sounds plenty), I want to be able to host a blog.
Dream is for me, thanks for the tip! :-)
I would have to agree, there is an old saying that you get what you pay for. Dreamhost charges $7.95 for over $300 worth of service which brings overselling to a whole new level. Quit being so cheap with your hosting budgets and pay a fair price and you’ll get good service.
http://www.appleswitcher.com/viewtopic.php?t=28100
DH has sucked lately. I hope Matt relocates that site.
I just had a nightmare of a time even getting signed up for dreamhost. They have a new policy which requires activation for credit card customers by means of a form you print out, make an imprint of your credit card and fax it back to them. One problem…they claimed they couldn’t read my credit card imprint and then queued my responses to tech support even after I refaxed a new document (paying twice for it). Of course, I could pay using paypal but I would have waived my 97 day guarantee which I needed to test if the reliability problems I had experienced on my sites hosted through my friend’s account were server related or if it was a company wide problem. I gave up after two days and got my account with HostGator in 10 minutes. http://jacob.steelsmithweb.com/blog/archives/2006/12/13/the-dreamhost-nightmare/
DreamHost doesn’t really get the idea of customer service. If you do give DreamHost a try, absolutely do not pay by any other way than credit card, so you can get your money back. You’re almost certain to have problems within the 97 day money back guarantee period.
And if you do try DreamHost, be sure to sign up for Hyperspin’s free monitoring service, so you’ll know when your site goes down. See How to Find a Web Host That Doesn’t Suck.
Hmmm where is Pligg.com? —-> Site Temporarily Unavailable
We apologize for the inconvenience. Please contact the webmaster/ tech support immediately to have them rectify this.
error id: “bad_httpd_conf”
Sorry, George, I don’t have any inside scoop on Pligg.com. They’ve been having problems since yesterday. I think they’re on DreamHost, so that may explain things.
I’ll agree in some matters, don’t use Dreamhost anymore. However they were quite nice when I did.
Thanks for the warning about DreamHost. However, I beg to differ with your opinion about AN Hosting.
I have been using AN Hosting for about 7-8 months now, and I frequently experience my server being down. This is the third time today where I can’t connect. Seems like that 99.9% uptime guarantee is just a hook.
The two times I’ve spoken with anyone at AN Hosting, I’ve gotten a tech support person like the one you see on Saturday Night Live or Mad TV.
They market a one-click install for WordPress, but no one-click upgrades. Once you upgrade, the server doesn’t recognize it and in order to install WordPress 2.1, you have to manually delete everything and start from scratch.
I chose AN Hosting because WordPress recommended and they would get the referral, but I’m looking for another web host once my year is up.
I guess I’ll try Blue Host and see if they live up to their promises.
Mike, I’m sorry to hear about your experiences with AN Hosting.
I’ve had no problems with them until this week. There was a problem at their data center that affected everyone, but it seems to be handled now. I’ve had worse problems with just about every host I’ve been with, so unless I see a pattern, I’m sticking with AN Hosting.
I have no idea what you’re talking about regarding their tech support. I’ve found it to be friendly and extremely helpful. The guys that answer the phone don’t always have the more technical answers, but I’ve always received the help I needed via email, usually within the hour. And they’ve helped me on issues unrelated to hosting (MySQL, cron, etc.), which they didn’t really have to do. In fact, compared to other hosts I’ve been with, I’ve found AN Hosting’s tech support to be really great.
I also can’t imagine that the one-click install for WordPress is any better or worse than other hosts, since almost all of them use Fantastico, which is what AN Hosting uses.
guys aggreed! DH sucks…. eating ppl money… damm it!
if u run a WALLPAPER website be very careful with dreamhost, they shut my site off completely, claiming it used to much “internal memory”. No warning, nothing, just an email after the fact it was shutoff.
Hello,
Unfortunately, I was forced to disable wallpaperdojo.com by renaming its
directory to “wallpaperdojo.com.disabled”. This was because the PHP
scripts under this site were causing the server to become unstable.
Please optimize or minimize the PHP and memory usage of these scripts, or
disable the dynamic capabilities of this domain if you cannot do so.
Write us back with the steps that you are planning to implement, so that
we don’t have to take further action against your account.
Thanks,
Charlie
There are still a lot of outages at Dreamhost. Last week all servers were down for 5 hours because they had to exchange a power cable in the rathole where they have their datacenter (still no redundancy). It was a planned outage and they have a separate server for status announcements, but they weren’t even able to serve an error page. It took them more than a day to get everything back up. On the status page they seem to be busier writing shill “customer” messages (Ã la “stop whining, what do you expect from a cheap ISP”) than actually responding to questions.
What annoys me most: I have extremely high (10 seconds +) latencies on my Rails pages all the time. I checked, it’s not a network issue. My pages aren’t very database heavy either. I tried to keep FCGI running with a cronjob that queries non-cached pages every 5 minutes, but to no avail.
Still, I appreciate their openness about server issues. Their rating at Better Business Bureau moved up to “B” which is pretty good for a cheap ISP.
I use blinx.net
He acquired my old host whom I was about to fire anyway. I found out I was sold when my site just died. I was running a seriously hacked and hacked again php forum script, and it wasn’t compatible with the configuration of Blinx’s servers.
JP at Blinx spent half the night with me sifting through and correcting page after page to make it work with his stuff (normal). The old host was running god only knows what. lol
Since then he has a customer for life.
I don’t think anyone works harder to keep his network reliable and up to date.
BTW, I don’t get anything for referring anyone to Blinx. I wouldn’t take it even if he offered. I am just pleased as punch, that’s all.
Jim, blinx.net may be good, but I just checked their site. It was slow to load and you don’t get very much for your money. More than most bloggers will need, but still, there are better values out there. And I’m not sure why anyone would have to spend half the night with you to get things to work with a particular host.
I understand and respect your loyalty, though. It’s hard to find a good host.
Robert,
The script I was running at the time was a forum based on: http://www.freedomunderground.org/
It was written by my old host and would only run on whatever configuration he had on his server at the time. I hacked it much more to make it fit my needs, but when it moved to blinx, it jusy wouldn’t run. It indeed took us half the night troubleshooting to fix all the hacks to make it run at blinx.
I don’t think money is everything. I think service is more important. I know that just about any time I have an issue, I can find JP on MSN and get an answer.
The problem with JP’s site loading slow is that the site itself sucks. lol I have spoken with him about that. It needs a good rebuild. It is all sliced and diced images.
But, anyway, I’m happier than I have ever been and I have used a good dozen hosts over the years. I add that I happen to have one of the reseller accounts, so I get a lot of bandwidth and domain names at a reasonable rate. I use them for my own purposes though. I don’t resell.
Oh yeah, a few weeks ago, I was serving up an income tax video on one of my wordpress blogs. An article on that blog got digged to the top of digg, and I got 24,000 visitors in 6 hours. A lot of them checked out the video while they were there, and the server was pushing 50 Mbits/s at one point without so much as a hiccup. The bandwith meter was flying, and I used 80 gigs in 6 hours. I eventually took the video down just to slow things down a bit, since it was another article people were actually coming for.
Jim,
Sounds like you have a good deal. Hosting is hit and miss, so if you’re happy there and you don’t mind paying a little more, it’s worth it.
Nice digg story!
I’ve watched this dreamhost discussion for quite a while, and it’s turn out that most of the comments are negative ones.
Currently, I am using websitesource to host my sites, but looking for other reliable hosting with economic price in order to move some of my domains into there.
I found out websitesource also experience quite a lot of downtime. Thats why I need to move some of my sites out of there.
PraDHA, I’ve been happy with AN Hosting. It’s an even better deal now that you can get 2 free months. Just click here and use coupon code ANHOST911.
Sorry to hear all this. So it seems that I’m just another sucker at the long row of unsatisfied DH customers. I must admit, I fell down on the numbers in their packages. Now I just have to wait to shut down my websites :|
Thanks for this great post.
Learned a lot googlin’ Dreamhost sucks today. Some great information here and it makes me wonder if I will be able to recover some websites. I was moving email services away from DH yesterday and a few hours later the account was terminated. Wouldn’t bother me one bit, all except for I had not moved the website yet and to top it off an unrelated website and email on that account was terminated as well. Seems someone got pissed that there was no response regarding an inquiry to a spam report. After checking it out the email was legit with an unsubscribe and DH filtered out the email reporting the incident. How crappy is that? You would think they would call a customer before terminating, especially one that has been faithful for 5 years. They were happy to cash $600 payment (just prior) though. I think I would have trouble sleeping at night if I did that to my clients. Maybe I could use that excuse “you should check the support history from time to time to avoid trouble”. I think I will try and use that the next time I feel like repossesing some servers or turning off some firewalls. It would be like pre-paying for
a years electricity and then having the electric company disconnect and hand you an excuse like “we’ll a neighbor reported that you were using the electricity on obnoxious halogen garage lights and we didn’t hear back from you via email with your defense”.
Not very dreamy hosting at DreamHost, To be honest, if you could buy hosting services at Wal-mart, something tells me that you would end up with a product just like DreamHost. With that I picture a bunch of people beating their kids with a shoe at DreamHost while eating cheetos and talkin on cells phones, all at the same time. Probably just a hoot to work there.
my 2 bits,
john
Since having access to a dream host server (alondra). I decided to do cd /; cd home; ls
WOW!! OMFG!! HOW MANY ACCOUNTS DO THEY HOST ON THAT SERVER!! LMFAO SHAME ON YOU!
OUTPUT: PASTED BELOW (ENJOY!! LOL)
[alondra]$
dnclip.wtf.24182 jillreviews persyus washington
doforum2 jillreviews.wtf.17771 pestuser watashi
dottie jkdata pettett wazza
dougy jkdata.wtf.18915 pfischer wcea
dougy.wtf.13038 jkpoirier pi10t wcta
dowebadmin jkyne.wtf.19959 pi10t.wtf.31244 wdhenderson
drbaaudio.wtf.7845 jmrommel pi10tshell wdhenderson.wtf.21646
drgold joeborreson picturefresno webtestxl
dricks001 john_hall pido wendyduren.wtf.30932
drinlith.wtf.27483 johncowhig pido.wtf.1672 whalley
duncecap johncowhig.wtf.6278 plastikmoon whimzyart
duncecap.wtf.14727 johnson1 plastikmoon.wtf.26320 whimzyart.wtf.17825
dunkel.wtf.13023 johnson1.wtf.22616 playthings whisperrockrealt.wtf.26929
dunktank jolanefreight plora2003 whitelaw
dunktank.wtf.23053 jolanefreight.wtf.31125 pmiweb whitelaw.wtf.19138
dustincercado jollyworld pmiweb.wtf.16898 whodat13.wtf.27315
e2ghost jonathanborreson prettyps wilko
eaicc jonathanj prettyps.wtf.11379 wilko.wtf.2133
easmc jondal.wtf.31919 pritchard_glass winlin
eburn.wtf.27483 jonm project_apollo wkarmia
ecocommerce joolnl psowork wlu
ecs123 jorgenk psptv wolke
ecs123.wtf.32212 jorgevil psptv.wtf.12060 wrigleyfield
edithhil jorrel psptv_dev wvrail
edw joshualane psptv_work x2l2
effie jpgallardo pubaccess xam2489
eggsampler jpgallardo.wtf.8606 publisher xam2489.wtf.712
ei8htball jquinlan purpleiguana xamax
eklmu.wtf.21673 jrock0505 pushingit xerodj
eldred jrock0505.wtf.17423 pushingit.wtf.1672 xinhxinhinfo
electrictape jstn pyromosh xlekox
elrefugio juaneken pyromosh.wtf.23629 xunil
emme judah qacea xunil.wtf.918
employer jumpjumpers qsharp yesois
enigmasis junady quartzo.wtf.18915 yorkshirekungfu
entensityupload junady.wtf.17040 queb360 zedben
equizi jung88 questchurch zephyd
equizi.wtf.11946 juster3 rachelyap zhijielu
eric_sack justinbeck raiden zhijielu.wtf.11414
erickt jwarnes randres2 zoleg
erinreneeperry kakirine rasneil zynny
Last month, after read your post, 3 or 4 times, i decided to give a try to AN hosting, i even used your coupon code ;).
30 May, I registered, and mailed the verification form (visa card). Few hours later, no news about my account, and the payment process.
During 2 days i tried to reach someone from their company to have some feedback, and in the meantime i sent several email to their support and billing services… No news just autiomated mails, informed me to have patience.
3 april, i received an email from one of them, named Thimothy, and he requested me to send again the credit card verification, and now i really get pissed of : the last couple of days, I already sent this form 3 times, several emails, and matter of fact it seems that these people got some issues with their emails. Due to their lack of reactivity, the absence of any account/control panel and my time wasted, i informed him that i do not want to go further with their company, and requested them to cancel my registration.
« Timothy » did not seems to understand a peanut about what we was talking about, he replied that, with regards to the terms of service, i could cancel my account only 2 days before the renew date.
I recalled him that i did not received any username, password so i did not see how i could cancel my account, so i requested again to stop any payment process related to my registration. And as far I know your got 60 days money pay back if your are not satisfied, so wtf ???
Unfortunately people from AN hosting was more ridiculous.
11 days later, meaning the 14 April, i just received 7 or 10 mails of AN hosting informed me that they just deducted the money from the visa card bank account, and they are pleased to welcome me in my new account.
You guess that i was and i am really, really, and really piss off . I wrote a mail to this folks describing (once again) their incompetence in the last 3 weeks and requested the refund, and guess what? 17 april, I still not have any answer. I guess that this weekend I will put on the web a blog named: “AN hosting doesn’t suck… They just fuck up!â€?
To show the weird situation: i contacted an other hosting company, a big one (not Dream Host ^o^), second after clicked the live chat, i had somebody to discuss about the payment procedure, 10 mn later registration, 2 mn later i had my password mailed. 6 hours later, my domain name was live.
Sorry for my english
KCA, I’m sorry you had a problem. I’ve referred several friends to AN Hosting and no one has had any problems getting their account set up. This isn’t an excuse for them, but I do know that a lot of hosts, as well as other online merchants, have become more paranoid about credit card transactions (especially international ones), which might have caused the original snafu. But your experience sounds pretty bad. All I can say is that I’ve been very happy with the hosting.
You are not very smart, are you?
First off, the reason for the F from “better business bureau” is that Dreamhost chose to ignore them! BBB are HACKS! They make up arbitrary ratings for companies they favor, and companies can opt-out to avoid criticism. It is a ridiculous way to gauge businesses, so dreamhost decided to ignore them. Those 7 unanswered complaints are complaints FROM BBB, NOT FROM CUSTOMERS.
However, BBB have since given Dreamhost a B, I guess dreamhost finally decided to give in because idiots actually referred to the BBB rating when they called dreamhost bad.
Anyway, revise your article, post an update that they now have a B, and the reason WHY they have a low rating.
– Matt
Matt, I’ve updated the post to reflect the change in their BBB rating. But I don’t think you’re correct about the old, unanswered complaints being from the BBB. I think the BBB is a valid source of information, but just one piece of information that should be considered with other sources.
I know godaddy doesn’t have the featureset of some of these hosts, but they’re up to 100gigs of storage and 1TB of bw on their deluxe accounts. I’ve had godaddy for almost 2 years now and it’s only gone out a couple times, and for only minutes. Godaddy’s phone support is pretty easy to reach, and note: I currently only have the economy plan. I’m either going to switch to a different host, or upg my godaddy to delux
GoDaddy is okay as a host, but I didn’t like their backend. It’s much easier to have a host that uses cPanel, in my opinion.
Thank you for writing this… DREAMHOST DOES SUCK!
I have this site that I update and manage hosted on Dreamhost…the site goes down daily for a good hour – and at other random times. Slow also!I am EXTREMELY frustrated with them but since I do not manage the hosting, I cannot do anything about the situation. I feel like it IS just bad business to be doing this…and it has been happening for about a year now. It reflects badly upon the people who visit the site.
Regarding the BBB…I wouldn’t hold too much on their ratings….I can attest to the fact that MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, companies with BAD RATINGS – are contacted by the BBB and they use their system for leverage by saying if you join us, we will put up great ratings for you. A competitor of my father’s company was on the BBB w/ a bad rating…and then 6 months later when they became a member and began paying their fees, all of a sudden, their F rating went to an A. They ALSO contacted my fathers company and told him that a competitor was now listed, and tried to get him to join saying they would keep his ratings up also. I believe that this happens all the time so I would NOT trust the BBB worth a crap! It is too bad more has not been done to prove this or somehow do something to make the BBB stop this terrible practice….in a way, it is giving out false information in order to make more $ with their members…and they lure in businesses with bad ratings by saying they will clean their slate if they pay…that’s just total bullshit!
Thanks for your comment Valerie. I don’t know much about the BBB either way. It’s just one more piece of information. I certainly wouldn’t make a decision based exclusively on their report.
I currently have DreamHost… No problems. But I can assure you, that if I get ONE problem, I’m going to end my service with them (thank God I used a credit card!). I wish I read this before I joined DreamHost, -.-.
DreamHost says… NO STREAMING CONTENT! But they allow QuickTime Streaming! WHAT THE HECK?! WikiMedia runs extremely slow on it as well.
And… The sad thing is… I was going to join AN Hosting! D:
Ah well… I’ll join later.
Well. I have to said that I have two hosting account with HostingZoom.com with very bad experience.
I am looking for switch to other providers. Here are my experience.
I have one account hosted on their very old shared hosting server, which they recently move to some other city to be apart from their new “Failover Hosting”, which I have my online store with it.
My shared hosting account have been with them almost 2 years. It was great at beginning with only 1GB space. Now I am ready to renew the account, but they said I can’t just upgread to their 20GB account without close my account and re-open new one. So I have to backup all the stuff and move myself. Am I crazy? There is not upgrade option?
Now my online store which is hosting on one of their C1, C2 failover server. The nightmare start day one since I signup.
1. The third day I got my store up and running. The site was down due to the database crash. The MySQL database is shared on their other server.
2. 7 days later the database crash again. Check with PHPMYADMIN, my entire database are gone. I lost sales for half day after they restored the previous backup.
3. 16 days later it happened again.
4. 21 days it happened again.
5. From that point on the server have heavy load on CPU all the time. Chat online with their tech support in India.. very unprofessional. They kick me out few times with excuses that their connection drop after I demand the answer about what was happening about my account.
6. My store have not ran smooth since I signup in January 2007. It’s up and down. They always said that the server was heavily load and they are looking into it. Never got the answer, they just said they reboot the server. So everything looks fine now.
7. I lost more than 6 sales due to the server failure while the customers were confirming their order with credit card.
8. Now their server still have exim(cpanel maildir failed) in the server status.
I am very unhappy with their services. You will be surprise when you heard the explanation about what their failover hosting means.
Now. My 1GB shared hosting server is running a lot better than 20GB failover hosting. However, I have no way to upgrade to 20GB and I still need to pay same amount of renew fee for less space?
If you search hostingzoom+C1+C2 server, you may find more complaints about their services.
Good luck to anyone with HostingZoom
By the way, is ANHosting part of HostingZoom? Or vice versa.
thanks!
I don’t really recommend Hosting Zoom anymore, but thanks for the info about your experience.
AN Hosting is not affiliated with Hosting Zoom. AN Hosting is owned by midPhase. But their hosting plans are much more generous than midPhase. In my experience, AN Hosting has been as good or better than any shared host I’ve been with.
Dont’ forget terror support, Dreamhost knowingly refuses to take down al-Qaeda’s voice of Jihad website.
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/187895.php
i was not able to get any phonme support even tho i paid for it. their outtage happened at a time when i and 3 clients were DESPERATE for it (but arent’ clients always..)
I have post comment on the other blog here..
I have been happy with ANHosting since I signed up after switching from HostingZoom.com(The worst). Yes. There was some issues with them. For example, my site was down 3 times in 8 days. And they have three different excuse.
I have post my #4 excuse on my blog.
http://www.terencechang.com/2007/06/04/my-experience-with-anhostingcom-4-excuse/
Evey hosting have their problem, but I called ANHosting over 20 time and chat with them prior to sign up. I also have hosted on Rackspace dedicated server without any issues.
The point is that every hosting company is having some issues. If the hosting company is acting quickly and proactive, I can live with it. If the server is down for more than 10 hours, I will consider it really bad.
I signed up ANHosting after I read this post. Just don’t know if the owner of this blog gets credit or not.
Thanks a lot!
I disagree with you about most hosting companies causing some sort of a problem. I have not had a single problem w/ my current web host and I’ve been with them over 3 years. I use a smaller company, as opposed to a big corporation – I think that makes a HUGE difference right there. Better service, better support, and more reliable! I will NEVER use a large hosting company like Network solutions, Dreamhost, Godaddy or Verio EVER again! I think if you can find a smaller, more reliable, and affordable host you can depend on, your golden!
I’ve been with both large and small hosts over the years and they have all been mixed. There’s an element of luck in all this, too. You can end up on a bad server at an otherwise good host, or vice versa, as I’ve written in How to Find a Web Host That Doesn’t Suck.
You are absolutely right they are the worst I have ever encountered. Our service has been down for 6 days after they shut it down with little or no warning and when we tried to contact them to move the service to another machine or do whatever it takes it took them 3 days to get back to us! Their customer service when you do get them to reply are either clueless/rude or both.
I hate dreamhost….though I wasnt even able to signup. Moneyorder…would cost me the same as the entire hosting plan just for the order itself.Googlecheckout? I would even use that if it was the last payment form on earth since i dont want a too exact profile of myself on their servers. The Dreamhostwiki lies about other paymentforms like creditcard and paypal..but that is just becoz they are lazy. There is no other payment. SCREW DREAMHOST!
A waste of time.
I must note; I’m about to leave them for the same comments made above – The issues are 10 times worse with Ruby on Rails, and they refuse to change to a static fastcgi format for the simple matter that they want to be able to can your processes to make room for other runaway processes.
Dreamhost is not good. They moved some servers, the switch meant that everything was going to be down for 4-5 hours in the middle of the night…
Ten hours later, still no email for lots of folks and if you look on their support page it lists the problem as resolved… they have dropped in quality and don’t seem to really care. Plus their customer support is slow and unhelpful at best. Avoid them!!
Blah blah blah, complaining for the sake of complaining…. “Ooooh I heard DreamHost oversells, so I looked up overselling and now I can feel knowledgeable and bitch too!”
DreamHost is a good hosting company. If they were that bad, as bad as all the whiny vomit out there implies, then why would there be so many people that adamant about defending them? You can’t use the excuse that those people don’t know what they’re talking about; that’s a blind overgeneralization.
People rarely voice their opinion when things are going well, but give 5 minutes of downtime and all hell breaks loose! If they were merely a mediocre company, then why would anyone bother addressing the crap from the people who seem to sustain themselves by trashing DreamHost?
Well I’ll pipe in w/ a response to this….obviously people DO have a problem w/ dreamhost, as look at all these comments…I’ve been stuck dealing w/ DH for a few years now…one of my client’s websites are hosted on there and EVERY FUCKING DAY our site goes down for over an hour for no reason what so ever – we have called customer service, and we have been givin the runaround and have been offered NO SOLUTIONS….so YEAH due to DH being UNRELIABLE, I’ll BITCH and WHINE all i want to!, I’ll MOAN, and I’ll COMPLAIN! I would even go so far as to say that I would cancel their hosting services if I had any control over that….but I don’t unfortunately.
It sounds to me as if you work w/ Dreamhost, or have some association w/ them…if not then lucky you for your perfect service…but obviously for those of use here posting comments, we have issues w/ them…and if Dreamhost were smart, they would try taking a listen to each and every one of us and our issues and take them into consideration…they are offering a service and a company should strive for the best service. When a company is as big as Dreamhost, of course there will be problems…but HOW THEY ARE DEALT with I think is the major issue here…and the answer to how they are dealt with is: NOT WELL!
They aren’t the only “popular” hosting company out there…GO Daddy and Verio I have also used and have had issues with….ALL IN ALL i think it is safe to say that if you want to save a bit of stress and hassle….go with a smaller hosting service where A. Plans are just as reasonable, and sometimes BETTER than these larger companies. and B. Offer Great customer service – if there are any problems I can contact a support person IMMEDIATELY w/out any problems and quickly resolving any issue that may of come up…of course things are not perfect and sometimes things go wrong…but come on, the fact that DH knocks my site out daily…well to me, that is a major problem…sorry if you disagree with that! My own smaller hosting company I use for my other client sites and my personal website rarely come across any problems….
I think i speak for all of us when i say our comments are coming out due to personal experience…I don’t think anyone here wants to intentially bash the company…bad service and bad business deserve the negative comments and publicity…if ya don’t like it, change it – and that is what dreamhost should do if they do not like negative publicity or have any care about their image.
I don’t work for DreamHost; I’m a satisfied customer. Support is impeccable and friendly, I’ve had absolutely no problems with them (of course I’m friendly to them too, even when I’ve had problems… all support reps with any company tend to respond well to that, rather than the shooting- the- messenger approach). If your site goes down every day, optimize your code.
I’m always friendly when on the phone with support. I do not know why you would assume otherwise. As for my code…I couldn’t get anymore compliant….we never had any problems until we had to switch over to DH which was supposed to be a cheap temporary solution that’s laster longer than I had hoped it would. No hard feelin’s man, I’m just sharing my experience, and due to the negative experience I have had, I can’t help but feel a bit annoyed.
Odd- I have been using then for 5 years with not one tiny problem!
ammm are you like 10 years old or something? A 10 000 word essay on why you hate dream host?
Sheesh dude stop your whining and get a girlfriend!
DREAMHOST really does suck. What kind of webhosting company doesn’t have a phone number for you to call? Their business is all about great customer service VIA email from god knows what country. They take many shortcuts and the only way you’re getting real American email tech support is from the attitude you get over their emails. Look up their record with the BBB and you’ll seethat they’ve pissed off many other people too. Their terms of service is full of BS limitations.
DREAMHOST really does NOT suck. They DO have a phone to call if you weren’t such a cheap fuck and would sign up for something above the cheapest plan they have. For the record, their support is impeccable and how many people do you know leave heartsy comments on the BBB when things are going their fucking way? How many people do you know leave comments when things are not going their way? Point made.
Actually, they pissed me off mightily with their deceptive “Rewards” policy. Whole story here:
http://www.paganini.net/index.cgi/misc/dreamhost.html
I opted for the recurring percentage deal because it’s also a good deal. Who says they have to give you a rewards program anyway?
Um, WHO gives a SHIT about a rewards program…I would rather have a RELIABLE hosting company – one I can RELY on for good SUPPORT, and HOSTING that never goes DOWN! They can take their referal program and shove it up their ASSES!
*Tho i will say if you can change your referal options in your profile…shame on you for not reading through it all and changing the prefs yourself….hidden perhaps, yes, hard to find, yes, but oviously able to change.
You can’t say there’s a host that never goes down. No host wants to go down, and they do what they can to prevent it from happening. Also I can’t understand how people can complain about DH’s support… From my experience with them it’s been impeccable, and they’re very friendly.
Well congrats to you on your luck for having great support from them. My client and I have contacted them regarding our site going down DAILY and they have YET to respond! Why is that? I’m friendly, I’m courteous, and we’ve been a long-time client. My CODE IS CLEAN….there are NO EXCUSES. OBVIOUSLY PLENTY of people on here have an issue with them. The BBB USED to have a TERRIBLE rating with them – and now it is ok because they paid off the BBB – so thats crap too….
I DO have a tough time believing anyone who is writing these glowing reviews on of DH – Specifically on a board that is to comment about the negative experiences that have been had. I have no doubt that DH knows of this particlular blog article and is probably getting some negative “press” all around – and for good reason! They are a crappy company! EVEN VERIO and GO DADDY are better!
When they FINALLY get around to responding to my numerious E-mails, and responding to my numerious Phone Call INquiries THEN maybe I’ll gain some respect…but for a company who can’t respond to the fact that one of their customers is unhappy with their service, and NOT willing to respond tells me this company is still the same crappy company it will always be. They still do decently in the business because they are DIRT CHEAP and have that referal program…but BY NO MEANS are they a TOP HOSTING company in MY BOOK! And my web design colleagues would completely agree!
So again if your one of the FEW who HAVE had good experiences with them….just wait they’ll F you over at some point!
PS if you work for DreamHost – YOU SUCK your SUPPORT sucks, YOUR service SUCKS….you can write all the positive comments on this blog ALL YOU WANT, but its not like it’s going to make you look better…proof is right here – people ARE pissed!
Would you care to back up your claim that they paid off the BBB? That’s a completely ludicrous claim. I don’t work for DreamHost — I’m one of many satisfied customers who feels that they deserve to be defended at least a little bit. I will agree with you that they’ve had downtime, there’s no denying that. It happens. I think the LA power outage is one of the things that got people really riled up, and it seemed to be around that time that some people started getting really passionate about bashing them. Even with some past downtime in mind, my experience with them and their support has been very good.
Honestly, I cannot 100% GUARANTEE that the BBB was “paid off”. However I DO know how the BBB works because my father’s company was contacted by them. And I have also heard other similar experiences to the one he had….Basically one of his direct competitors had a D rating, and as soon as they became a member and paid their dues, the BBB changed the rating from a D to an A – which happened to change in less than a month. This is regardless of the fact that numerious people had given them terrible ratings. What type of a company that is supposed to give consumers honest ratings on businesses change their rating because of this? Right after his competitor joined the BBB and their rating changed, the BBB contacted my father directly through a phone call and tried to get him to join the BBB, stating that his competitor has just joined, and that IF HE JOINED, that they would give his biz an A rating too….I can’t remember what his rating was at prior to the call but it was already a high rating of an A or a B. So I have a hard time understanding this type of business practice, and taking the BBB seriously for business ratings. Again I’ve heard similar experiences from other business owners. IMO its tough to regard that.
IN respect to the downtime, we were definitely affected by it…but still, to this day, the site goes down a good few times a week – sometimes over an hour. I mean its pretty bad when the MANY times I go to upload new content to the site I maintain, that I cannot upload due to the server being inaccessable (i.e. DOWN)!
This is my experience. I’m glad you’re having a good one! I’m not even on a basic plan either…and its not just about the downtime issue here, its about their lack of good support and customer service..APPARENTLY I’m not the only one, or this blog wouldn’t still be getting negative comments!
Can someone who wasn’t happy w/ their service before tell me they’ve switched, or have better service, support, and reliability now?
Interesting exchange here, folks, but this post is getting a bit unwieldy with all of the comments. I’m going to ask you to please move it to the forums if you want to continue.
The bottom line, as far I’m concerned, is that all hosts are a mixed bag. Things do go wrong, even at the best hosts. Some people get lucky, find themselves on a good server, and others are unlucky and land on a bad one. Some people find a friendly voice at the other end of the line when they call, others are greeted by a*holes, and both people work for the same company.
I found DreamHost unreliable, unresponsive, and (when I needed their help) unfriendly. But they do have a sense of humor. I wouldn’t host with them for free, though (they gave away a year of free hosting at WordCamp, but I wouldn’t bother).
I host sites with Media Temple and AN Hosting. I’ve been less than impressed with Media Temple. They’re okay, but I’m not convinced they’re worth the premium price. I should write a review someday. AN Hosting, on the other, hit some rough spots a while back, but seem okay now. In my experience, they’ve been mostly reliable and service has been great (especially via email, they’ve given me a lot of technical support above and beyond what might be expected).
As always, your mileage may vary.