Happy customers?

I hope this is the right place to post this.

I've been thinking of switching hosts recently. They use to be outstanding, but lately there are so many problems and their customer support has gone downhill (why does that happen so often?).

Curious how many happy customers are here and why they love dreamhost? What level of support have people had?

Hope this is okay to ask.

DreamHost is an great webhost for people who don't mind getting in, "getting their hands dirty", and doing things for themselves. The level of server access you get is amazing considering they're primarily a "shared hosting" solution. Support is fantastic, although they will only offer support for things that are pertinent to the servers (ie. they won't walk you thru "How do I...?" type things) but the forum is a great source of advice/tutorage for those matters.

If you are at least semi-savvy with webhosting, DreamHost is the top pick.




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I haven't experienced customer service going downhill. I continue to get the occasional help I need in a timely and satisfactorily manner.

I've been on my current server for a few years, which helps smooth things out. Old established servers with old established users offer very few surprises. I've been getting 100% uptime reports from monitor.us for at least the last 6 months. Beyond that, it's only been below 95% only once or maybe twice.

-Scott

Currently I am on DH PS. Load average and uptime are reasonable stable for me. I'm not sure about shared server any more.

The load average went crazy for a while for me when I was on shared server. After I switched PS, everything is fine.

Well, I started up here in Jan. 2008. The first two or three weeks were rocky - some slowdowns and db errors. Since then though, I haven't had any sort of complaints about speed or uptime. The one-click installs were helpful and the advanced mode still lets you edit all the little details involved. So... cheap, reliable, fast, convenient.

TBH I don't know much about their actual customer service.. I'm trying to learn here so I'd like to figure out as much as possible on my own. This forum has been an incredible help on more than one occasion, however.

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I've been with Dreamhost for around 3 years now, over all I've been pretty satisfied. Customer support is good and hosting is decent. I do have some criticism though, the "PS" is NOT a VPS. You don't have root access and the only thing you do have is adjustable RAM and CPU. I had both MySQL and Host "PS" and to be honest I went to a much better and cheaper VPS provider and love them. The performance increase was drastic since I have complete control over it.

I still maintain a Dreamhost account along with "PS" for host, I canceled the "PS" for the MySQL. The reason why I do is like I said Dreamhost is a "good" provider and the benefits are with storage space. So I use Dreamhost for a sub domain for my Gallery, this combination works well in conjunction with my main site which is hosted with my VPS.

So in summary, Dreamhost IMO is an excellent host and works well for those who either lack the skill set or just don't want the hassle of managing a real VPS.

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

In reply to:

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I've been with Dreamhost for around 3 years now, over all I've been pretty satisfied. Customer support is good and hosting is decent. I do have some criticism though, the "PS" is NOT a VPS. You don't have root access...

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Actually, you do! You can set up users with full access to "sudo" at https://panel.dreamhost.com/index.cgi?tree=vserver.adminusers

You can't load up your own OS, upgrade, downgrade, etc.

Like for example the VPS I'm using I get a serial console and I boot strapped Gentoo from a stage one install. Basically it's having my own hardware, I can even run my own kernel ;)

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

In reply to:

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I do have some criticism though, the "PS" is NOT a VPS. You don't have root access and the only thing you do have is adjustable RAM and CPU. I had both MySQL and Host "PS" and to be honest I went to a much better and cheaper VPS provider and love them. The performance increase was drastic since I have complete control over it.

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Different strokes for different folks. If you want complete control, then Dreamhost PS is not for you.

If you want the ease of managed apps like you get from the Dreamhost control panel and managed apps and control over the amount of dedicated memory and CPU, then Dreamhost offers that for you. If you also want to run server processes, then Dreamhost is for you as well.

Apparently now, if you want to futz around with root access, then Dreamhost is for you as well.

I can understand how if you want to do a close-to-hardware-level OS install from scratch, you might want to choose a different VPS provider, though.

For me, Dreamhost PS provides exactly the amount of control I want and yet saves me the trouble of having to do my own server management. It's an interesting blend of managed hosting and VPS.

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And as I said in my above post, I'm happy with Dreamhost and currently still use them with no plans of changing. But bottom line is Dreamhosts pseudo "VPS" is not a VPS. The performance difference between Dreamhost PS and a real VPS is drastic, but with a real VPS you have to set it up and you're responsible for it. So with Dreamhost's PS you are still managed and for someone who either doesn't have the skill or someone who doesn't have the time/desire it works well for them.

What I've done is married Dreamhosts PS with my real VPS for my production site and it fits the bill perfectly. Dreamhost is an excellent hosting company and I still recommend them to those who are looking for a hosted solution.

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

It's a nice "plugnplay" host ...

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I've been a happy DreamHost customer (virtual only) since the spring of 2001. There are less expensive hosts out there but I have never seen the level of features, access or control that DreamHost offers for near the same price. The Web Panel is unbelievably convenient. One-click installs are a real time-saver. The default webmail (SquirrelMail) is barely functional, but I've survived with it for over 8 years; and there are alternatives available now such as hosting mail service with GMail. For the rare times that the support Wiki or Forum have not provided an answer, the Customer Support folks have been timely and helpful. Uptime has occasionally been an issue, but I'm not hosting anything with super-critical uptime requirements. Considering the price, I don't think you can beat what DreamHost offers.