Help -- need honest assesment. Will it be FAST?

I'm so desperate to find a faster host, I'm willing to move from my prepaid server. :)

I have a site that has 400-600 visitors a day; expecting growth in the next six months. Many pages are php/mysql driven. My host is dismally slow when it comes to php/mysql, so I'm losing visitors. I need the techy stuff like shell access, phpmyadmin, cron, etc. It will take me AGES to migrate my sites over because of the database/ newsletter/ autoresponder/ etc. elements so I want to be 200% sure I have the right host.

What is your honest opinion? Will DreamHost be *fast* for a site like this? Can someone show me an example of a fast php/mysql app on DreamHost? Please email me with your frank opinions or post them here.

Thank you,
Blake
blakita@planet-save.com

I have no problems, currently 350-400 visitors daily.

My personal site doesn't get many visitors but when I visit it, it's fine. I'm also testing some mods out for a forum and they work fine.
I did the same thing (moving from slow host) and have been pleased with the service here.

Take a look at Mike Davidson's glowing review of DreamHost on his blog. He is lead designer / architect of ESPN.com.

http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog

Edited by m.kidder on 02/10/05 05:58 PM (server time).

just had to say, nice first post m.kidder! =D

jason

I wouldn't recommend DreamHost in your situation. My site is also heavy on the PHP/MySQL, and I've had nothing but headaches dealing with DreamHost and their limitations. Look around the posts on this board -- you'll see plenty of other people complain about their databases being slow.

My site gets about 4,000 visitors per day.

Edited by zmcnulty on 02/13/05 06:17 PM (server time).

to be fair, I've got one site here that sees between 2000-3000 visitors per day and experiences no slowness. It's entirely data driven using php and mysql.

Then other sites I have that get far less traffic, but are data driven as well, seem to experience these intermittent speed issues. Nothing along the lines of unbearable however (knock wood).

Seems to be a matter of luck unfortunately.

jason

Stay away... stay awaaaay...

A couple of weeks ago I'd have recommended dreamhost, because they *were* fast, but they're not fast now, and they haven't been fast about fixing it. I'd certainly wait to see how, or if, they handle their current crisis before signing up. You can get your twenty bucks back, but you don't get back the migration time.

I love dreamhost, and I think it's awesome for personal sites. If you want to host a blog, some forums for a small group, etc., there's no better value in my mind. But if you have a heavy database application and a lot of hits, I don't think you'd love it as much as I do. I've found that there's almost always a delay when I do database transactions. I'm not sure, though, if it's just a bigger hit when connecting, or if it's steady throughout the entire transaction.

DreamHost does have a 91 day guarantee, though. So you could certainly try it out, and if it doesn't work out, get your money back and try something else.

Good luck.