Guess what? Dreamhost is still awful.

I’m dealing with them to get a client site upgraded (she chose Dreamhost, not me) and it’s been the worst experience I’ve had with any hosting company anywhere in the last decade.

Again, it’s 2010. Shouldn’t be hard to just upload some files to a server via FTP right? Right – except if Dreamhost run the server where your FTP account gets locked out randomly after about 10 minutes and tech support are as helpful as a bag of cheese.

Dreamhost – you really do suck.

Doesn’t seem brilliantly fast, but honestly, it’s good enough.

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.

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?

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!

*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.

http://www.paganini.net/index.cgi/misc/dreamhost.html

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.

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?

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!!