How long have you been with Dreamhost?

(sorry if this has been asked before!)

Just want to know who has been hosting with Dreamhost the longest and whether you think you made the right choice :)

I've been with Dreamhost since October 2005 and so far, I am liking it but I'm not sure if I should extend the hosting for another 2 years...

I was planning to say but I have this script which is like a mailing list with about 400+ members and apparently I cannot send out 100+ emails within an hour. I mean I only email those members if something comes up :P

Why not switch to using RSS or a blog whatnot and save on the emails, like DreamHost have done with their dreamhoststatus page?

There is so much spam these days that you can never be sure if your emails are getting through the ever increasing anti-spam nuclear defence measures.

I have only been here since February but I am impressed by the way DreamHost update and add features rather than the old cPanel hosters who never change year in, year out. The ever increasing user space and bandwidth are big plusses (plusii ?) of course.

If you are so satisfied with your hosting apart from just one small part (the emails) I would suggest staying. The grass is not always greener!

If you wanted to stick with your emails I am sure there is a way to send them out in batches. Maybe DreamHost would give you a special dispensation if you waved a five pound note under their noses (nosii ?).

I've only been hosting with DreamHost since the beginning of December last year.

I experienced a few small problems, such as the panel slowing to a crawl just after the plan changes in January (since rectified), but other than that things have been excellent.

So far I don't see any compelling reason to move when my plan comes up for renewal. My major reasons for moving to DreamHost are still just as valid now as they were when I chose them.

Mark

If you are so satisfied with your hosting apart from just one small part (the emails) I would suggest staying. The grass is not always greener!

Yeah I feel like staying with Dreamhost because I rarely email people and I only email them if I decide to move my website which is once every 3-4 years? :P

I'm just afraid that if I made the wrong choice and I return to Dreamhost, I wouldn't have my trustworthy server which I'm on - my server hasn't been giving me any problems! :D

I have been with dreamhost since September 2003

I have customers with about 15 different webid accounts that I maintain and almost all are on different servers (hosting maybe 50 different sites.) These accounts range from the most basic plan to several strictly business plans.

In all I am highly impressed with Dreamhost. I have not had the server issues others have seen on any of these accounts. Support tickets are answered much much faster now that in 03 (even got one answered within a minute of sending it in a few weeks ago!) When needing support, in general it has been something I did...and dreamhost's techs/support folks have been very helpful.

I do have two clients who use separate email hosting...but that is due to them needing to send out over 1,000 emails at a time (sometimes over 10,000.) Email has not been a big issue here for my other clients...

To date I have not ever had a reason to think of leaving dreamhost...and will still continue to recommend them to new clients.

Since May of 2002. I have a couple of nits to pick of course, but the 'golden handcuffs' are working on me. I find it very very easy to do 99% of what I want or need to do. I try to be a good shared-hosting neighbor and I think DH tries hard to be a good host, and succeeds admirably. There have been ups and downs but as a relative geezer I increasingly take the long view and don't judge things very harshly or very quickly. On balance, I like it here and will feel very sad if I outgrow shared hosting (as I will not be able to afford dedicated).

April 2002 -- no plans on leaving. :)

I've been with DH since March 2000. I still remember the old control panel :-)

wootindustries.com
Promo Code: WJD97 - $97.00 off any new DreamHost plan (except month-month payments).

Since June or July of (arguably) the last year of the previous millennium (1999). :-)

They went away from their "no setup fee for all eternity" pledge (below), but I'm sure there's some explanation. :-)

Yes, imho, it was "the right choice."

You might consider getting an email-only account at a service that specializes in email, and leave the hosting to DH, although I'm fairly confident they will work things out reasonably well, reasonably soon. That is, unless they sell out to that Windos host company. :-(

It's ridiculous if you can't have a 400 member announcement list without snafu's. Support has no solution?

> I still remember the old control panel :-)

And I (vaguely) remember the old forum, and the 10 cents per click rewards program. :-)

Cheers,

BobS

In reply to:

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The Dreamhost Price Freeze Pledge
On May 21st, 1999, Dreamhost Webhosting put in writing a company policy we've been practicing since our conception. That is, we announced a PRICE FREEZE on all accounts, meaning we would never raise prices on existing accounts or charge a setup fee on new accounts ever!

Our Price Freeze Pledge is specifically this: Whatever your monthly rate is when you sign up for hosting will never increase as long as you stay a customer of Dreamhost! Plus for all eternity there will be no setup fees on any new accounts.

This price freeze pledge is the most aggressive in the industry, and is the only one that offers such a long guaranteed rate (forever!), coupled with a NO SETUP FEE guarantee.

We have no reason to raise our rates, have never done so, nor do we have any intention of ever doing so. By making this pledge, we are assuring our customers a flat rate for webhosting forever with no worries about surprise price hikes. We feel that this is a very important promise to our customers, and one that you can not find anywhere else.

Note that this pledge does not apply specifically to fees for add-ons or related services, because such pricing can, under certain conditions, be influenced by factors beyond our control.

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Since August, 1998 - (had to look up my first invoice to remember;-)

I'm convinced I made the right choice, and believe me when I tell you I have been through my share of "ups" and "downs" since signing up.

The only things I am really "concerned" about right now are email and CPU limits. I'm afraid the 100 email per hour limit not only affects any "decent" size list you might want to run, but might also pretty-much preculde you from hosting an interactive site (one that mails email confirmations of postings to forums, notifications of new articles, order confirmations from ecommerce, etc,) that becomes even moderately popular, and I am starting to see that as a real potential problem.

I'm fearful the CPU limits now enforced will also be a problem for any successful interactive sites. Looks like dedicated hosting may be the only way to go if you have any real success. Maybe that is how it should be.

I understand their concern, but I don't see the email limit as being a solution to the "spam" problem. There is not much use for all that bandwidth and webspace if your site can't handle traffic, correspondence, and it's consequences.

AOL still blocks various DH webservers, seeming without any real logic or reason. One day mail gets through, another it doesn't. First one server is blocked, then another. IO don't believe it is DH fault; but it sucks for customers not being able to get order confirmation emails, or acknowledgement of their form comments/'suggestions.

Value? I'm still convinced that DH rocks! I used to unreservedly recommend them to anyone needing general "outsourced hosting", and still do on a daily basis, but now I find myself qualifying my recommendations with questions like, How many visitors do you expect? Any interactive features? How do you want to handle email? The email and CPU limits I think make what used to be the best deal going into "too low-budget" for some (many?) small business users.

DH is *great* while just starting out, but you would hate to have everything start to break if your business took off! I can see it now: great little site with a great product/content/etc. Discovered/mentioned by a "biggie" - "Oprah says 'check it out', then *boom*, site crashes shared server, emails containing links to confirm "sign-up" don't get sent because more than 100 people signed up in the same hour (it could easily happen!), and all these visitors pounding on your "forum" run your CPU usage way up and gets your scripts suspended...virtual death. I can see such a scenario kiling a site long before webspace/bandwidth limits are approached. Still useful for shoving "heavy files" to limited visitors, and great for your own "virtual backup" tool, but I don't think a user on a shared server would ever approach bandwidth/storage limits before CPU usage became the problem, particularly if the site is interactive in nature with dynamically built pages (which *is* the way most "modern" sites are now run). While I have always been happy with the email only tech support, and have found them responsive, friendly, and knowledgeable, I'd hate to have to wait for email only exchanges if a scenario like the one I described developed. That *would* suck!

LIfe *has* gotten more complicated. I still love DH, I'm just a bit more "nervous" now than I used to be. Maybe DH could make a "win/win" arrangement where, with prior agreement and by arrangement, an account could agree to automatic ad/banner insertion for and during any "short-term" (say 7-14 days?) "spike" caused by "great press", internet buzz, slashdot, etc., and scale you up "short-term" to keep you breathing while things "settle". That would sure go a long way toward calming my nerves, and I would *gladly* share the benefits of such heavy traffic with the provider that stands by me when/if that happens.

I can't believe I typed all that! DH is a great host, good people, and fair with their users in every respect. I'm happy for their success and, as far as I possibly can, I'm not moving any of the sites I host here in the forseeable future.

--rlparker

not long, only like 2 months now. Was hesistant before because of all their problems..