DreamHost vs. BlueDomino

I've been with DreamHost since January and I must say I am very pleased with their service. The CodeMonster $15.95/m deal is a dream come true. I never realized how much I was missing out on when I was with my previous host, BlueDomino (www.bluedomino.com). Here's a comparison:

Packages
- DreamHost: CodeMonster plan offers 7.5 GB of space and 192 GB/m of bandwidth for $15.95/m
- BlueDomino: Their 'Ultimate Hosting' plan only offers 1 GB of space and 60 GB/m of bandwidth for a whopping $35/m (ouch! I was actually paying that)

Control Panel
- DreamHost: Gives you virtually complete control over your account, you can view almost any stats, offers a wide array of bonus material, almost anything you would possibly need is there.
- BlueDomino: You can view your account info and check up on your site's stats. Yay. That's it. No goodies, no ability to control your package's features, nada.

Customer Service
- DreamHost: Offers e-mails, a forum, and callbacks. In the forum they even answer any tutorial questions you have, which is something few hosts take the time to do.
- BlueDomino: Customer service only helps you with account-related questions. They have a live 24-hour support via chat. Oh, your question is tutorial? Sorry, they can't help you there. They'll tell you to search Google. Oh, your question is about billing? Sorry, you need to contact billing during business hours, 9-4. They also always seemed to be in a hurry, as if they are pressued to keep sessions short. They get impatient and forceful if sessions are too long. Very poor service.

Cancellation
- DreamHost: After the first 91 days, upon cancellation the account cancels at the next renewal. There are no extra fees.
- BlueDomino: Upon cancellation the account cancels at the next renewal. There's a $20 cancellation fee. Oh and if you cancel within 14 days before the account renewal you're billed the contract fee again. :) So if you were like me paying $104.85 every 3 months, that's an extra $104.85 of free money for BlueDomino if you cancel within the 14 days. And that's in addition to the $20 cancellation fee, the cherry on the cake. BlueDomino gets the last laugh once you decide to leave. Imagine people who had the yearly method of payment and cancelled within the 14 days - that's $420 of free money for BlueDomino!

As you may have already guessed, BlueDomino did screw me in that area. I was billed an extra $104.85 upon cancellation. As a full-time college student my budget is very tight. The unanticipated charge caused my account to go into the negatives. My bank hit me with $60 worth of penalty charges due to negative transactions (I have a check card). My balance is -$167 all thanks to BlueDomino. :) And I can't wait to get that $20 cancellation fee in 3 months. Altogether, BlueDomino legally stole $200 from me, for nothing. $200 just tossed out the window. It would've been nice if BlueDomino's billing department told me in their cancellation e-mail "Your account is officially cancelled. Oh btw, we're going to bill you your hefty contract fee one more time". If they did that I would've at least saved myself $60 in bank penalties. The lesson I've learned is to make sure to read the fine print of every contract. :

OMG! I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I chose DreamHost over bluedomino more than a year ago, and have been nothing but happy here. And now you've confirmed that was a good decision. The cost written in the fine print at some shadier companies is actually much higher for anyone on a tight budget.

~Chell
http://www.chellsroost.com

I was about to sign up with DreamHost three or four years ago, but their 20 GB/m of bandwidth wasn't enough for my website. I went along with BlueDomino since, at the time, their package stats offered more for the same price. I remembered that both DreamHost and BlueDomino survived the Internet's decline in Summer of 2000, so I viewed both hosts as healthy, trustworthy companies. While with BlueDomino I still checked back on DreamHost every now and then. I noticed their package's stats slowly increasing as time went by, while the prices remained fixed. It was until their recent unbelievable sale that made me decide to finally make the switch.

Btw, if you went to BlueDomino's page you would see their flagship sales pitch is "Sign up now to gain $600 of Coffeecup Software FREE". Ha, if you read the fine print of their terms of service you would see you are required to fork over that $600 once you decide to cancel. That is, if you decided to download any of their 'free' software. Fortunately I didn't bother to. If I did then BlueDomino would've legally stolen $800 from me! $800!! Bloody murder.