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DreamHost to LOWER disk and bandwidth quotas in 2007 stability effort!

blog.dreamhost.com — Josh Jones writes in their blog, "Every day, the amount of starting disk and bandwidth we offer new customers (this does not affect existing customers at all!) will drop. (Don ’t worry, once you sign up, your disk and bandwidth allocations will grow weekly just like before!) And we’ll keep dropping them daily until our precious rep is restored!"

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  • mindless2, on 10/12/2007, -3/+66Oh the Humanity! Look how much bandwidth the precious new customers will lose. What is wrong with them, are they crazy?
    http://www.dreamhost.com/hosting.html
    199GB to 198.5 GB!!!!! HORRIBLE!
    • m3mn0n, on 10/12/2007, -59/+4Only thing horrible here is the fact that people still use DreamHost....

      They're a joke compared to a real host like LiquidWeb
    • sockpuppets, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13And if you act now we'll include this handy pocket sized Dreamhost AT NO EXTRA CHARGE!!!

      ARE WE MAD?

      We're giiivving it all away!!
    • badtz, on 10/12/2007, -43/+5Basically, ANY host is better than Dreamhost. Personally, I use midphase. But any will do! Don't get suckered into DH.
    • Software2, on 10/25/2007, -23/+34Wow... I can't believe nobody's listed a refferal code yet.

      "DIGGFANS" will chop off like $60


      You may procede with burying and/or blocking now :P
    • mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -4/+32Dreamhost gives incredible value.. if they lower some of the limits, it'll still be an incredible value.
    • gamerzworld, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8@Software2
      Thanks for posting the code. I might just give Dream Host a try and see if it is like what people say it is.
    • nogami, on 10/12/2007, -7/+10What an unusual marketing idea. Basically seems like they're offering less service for the same price in order to give older customers better service than you, as a new customer get.

      The "until our precious rep is restored" bit also seems to imply there are problems with their service right now, which may not be particularly effective at drawing new customers.

      N .
    • pthourson, on 10/12/2007, -11/+6Here is another coupon code: DIGGDISC will give you $80 off. It is a pretty good deal. I signed up for the basic level of hosting and got a year for around $35.
    • SPLASTiK, on 10/12/2007, -4/+229999 will give you 99.99 off a 1 year plan. 1 year basic plan with free domain cost me under $20. Works fine, I haven't had any problems yet.
    • theurge, on 10/12/2007, -18/+3The code"FULLMOON" will give you a year for $30.00. Not a bad price for a whole year of hosting...
    • alok0, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6Here is another few codes I found, M97 or SERENITY will give you the maximum discount, of $97 or whatever the limit is on each of the specific plans
    • Foma, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15For those who don't know how DH referral codes work: when an existing customer creates a code, they pick how much of a fixed "pool" of savings will go to themselves, and the rest goes to whoever uses the code. From the dreamhost promo code explanation:

      "Now you can make your own DreamHost promo codes that new customers can use to get a one-time discount while signing up! Anybody who uses YOUR promo code when signing up automatically gets their referrer set as you (above all else).

      The only downside is whatever discount you give them comes out of your $97 one-time rewards payment (anybody who uses a promo code will be set as a one-time rewards, not recurring). But hey, that's only fair! It's basically a way for you to share some of your rewards with the people you're referring."

      So the promo codes were created as a modification of the standard "referral" rewards that come when someone simply gives them your email address to list you as a referral.

      Because the maximum discount is $97, I don't think that the code mentioned above for $99.99 is possible (the person offering that code may have just remembered the details incorrectly). The promo code that I created a while ago, "JAMES", gives that maximum discount of $97. I get no direct benefit from people using that code, but I am listed as the new customer's referrer. This means that I end up getting $5 applied to my DH bill for every "sub-referral" (every customer that is referred by a customer which used my promo code).
    • audguy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Er the 9999 DOES work, I just signed up. it went from $119 a year to $20 SWEET!
    • Foma, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1That's...weird. I can't find a way to make a promo code worth anything more than $97 off the first year. Not that $2 is worth worrying about too much I guess....
    • Foma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@nogami:

      Read the article. This has nothing to do with what you think it does.
    • SPLASTiK, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5@Foma

      9999 works because it isn't a user referral promo code, it's by Dreamhost to celebrate their 9th Anniversary. A year before they had 8888 which took off $88.88 to celebrate their 8th.
    • fac3less, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Be wary of both affiliates code posted.
      If the affiliate code does NOT give you 97 dollars off the original poster is making money from it.

      Just be careful.
    • xigxag, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Oh, wow. I just bought a year of hosting for $119 yesterday....damn me for not doing my homework. I figured it would be a 10% discount (and I wasn't paying) so didn't bother. Funny that this is on digg front page the day after, timing meh.

      I am digging the services at DreamHost. The automated unlimited email accounts (with webmail), the one-click installs of wordpress, joomla, etc. are very cool. The wiki was also very informative for all the services and software installs. Plus, I was able to sign up for hosting and buy a domain all on one page, without any upsell. This compared to the mess that is GoDaddy was very refreshing.
    • blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4"Er the 9999 DOES work, I just signed up. it went from $119 a year to $20 SWEET!"

      Hm, 119$ to 20$ ? That's approximately what happened to what I thought the service was worth over the last year... coincidence?
    • Scotepi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Infinity - 1
    • MyDocuments, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1lets say someone uses the 9999 promo to bring hosting down to $19.41/yr. after a year, are you able to sign up using another promo code? i wouldn't want to get stuck paying $100+/yr for hosting after this promo ends. i recall some of the old 777 users having the same problem and just switching to another host. what do most people do after the yr is up?
    • keesj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@MyDocuments, you can only use one coupon code per account. So if you're able to create a new account next year you could use a coupon again. However, creating a new account every year is a lot off hassle.
    • pawn, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1
      Even after these minimal cuts the disk space quota is still gigantic and well beyond what 99.999% of people realistically need.

      There's plenty of digg promo codes giving up to $97 off the first year of hosting. Anything less and the difference goes in the referers pocket.

      Here's a few giving the FULL $97 promo code off which makes the first year just $22.40.

      DIGGSPECIAL ($97 off)

      DIGGCOUPON ($97 off)

      WEBHOST97 ($97 off)

      REWARD97 ($97 off)

      Can apply those to any yearly hosting plan. They also give discounts on monthly plans too. All include unlimited mysql databases and unlimited fully hosted domains.

      Sky's the limit!

      It's easy to log in via a secure shell too and issue unix commands to do common tasks really quickly, like moving files around, zipping/unzipping archives, ftp-ing files, changing permissions, editing text files, file searching etc. I had to go through hoops to enable this at my last webhost but with Dreamhost it's easily enabled via their control panel.

      Page to sign up is:
      https://dreamhost.com/signup/
    • funk49, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0They are physically located in the Garland building....that's enough to keep me from ever considering using them for services. The Garland building owners (owned by Wells Fargo, located on 7th Ave in downtown LA) is being sued by the majority of it's tenants (Myspace, etc) who are tired of the outages. Management miscalculated the amount of power it could provide and now tenants routinely see outages...like the major one suffered by Myspace last summer.

      That place suck and so does Dreamhost for staying there.
  • meredith, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4It's probably going down half a gig per day, though.
    • adragons, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6No not necessarily 500megs X the supposed 300'000 customers they have = 150000gigs saved.
    • Foma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Read the actual article, and also the one from a while back regarding "overselling" that is linked from it:

      http://blog.dreamhost.com/2006/05/18/the-truth-about-overselling/

      This is not about them trying to actually save disk space and bandwidth. This is about them trying to change their reputation as "oversellers" by creating more of an impression that they place "realistic" space and bandwidth limitations on customers. I have a site hosted by DreamHost and it has been working better and faster recently than it ever has before, and I think it's safe to attribute this to the fact that they've recently added a lot more servers so that there is a lower number of customers on each one (my own account happened to be one that was moved to a different machine).

      I don't know if tightening the limits for new customers is actually a good business move or not, but rest assured that it has nothing to do with DreamHost actually struggling with server load.
  • smokinpole, on 10/12/2007, -23/+1Josh and his rep, oh jeez. sometimes i think people need to gets jobs and girlfriends and start focusing on things that really matter instead of blogging
    • jordon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+28I agree with wuweing, I like to read their newest blog posts whenever they have them. Plus the fact that they are honest when they are having problems, and they offer http://dreamhoststatus.com running in a different datacenter.
    • smokinpole, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Josh was just getting joshed a little. I'm pretty sure he has a girlfriend, a job, a life, etc. and he's funny. The Newsletter is better IMO because I am lazy and want home delivery. Dreamhost is the way of the future, I've had an account with them going on for two years now.
  • snlildude87, on 10/12/2007, -2/+29Any company that has a sense of humor is okay in my book.

    And for those thinking about Dreamhost, my site has been able to handle digg traffic in the past. Take that however you want.
    • MannaPC, on 10/12/2007, -18/+2Yah, but sadly, DreamHost doesn't have one. This guy couldn't entertain a 2 year old.

      DreamHost sucks, plain and simple.
  • PueSi, on 10/12/2007, -13/+1I used to have a site hosted on Dreamhost : (.. the memories
  • JamesWilson, on 10/12/2007, -7/+11They should have a counter just like gmail, only showing the amount of space as it is decreasing.

    And then when it gets to negative numbers it should start seeking out, attacking, taking over vulnerable web hosts and taking away their free space by filling it up with high quality TIFFs of goatse.
    • culbeda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Why switch hosts? Already existing accounts aren't affected..."

      Exactly. When I signed up, I think the plan was 2 or 4GB of storage. Now I have 447.8GB and it's supposed to grow 2GB every week.

      If it wasn't for the bandwidth restrictions, I could use this to (barely) backup every piece of critical data I have. And my rates have NEVER increased.
  • Everglow, on 10/12/2007, -11/+5Any suggestions for new hosts then? 1and1 is driving me nuts...
    • HaxityHaxHaxed, on 10/12/2007, -15/+2http://www.hostmonster.com/track/coderweb/text1

      They oversell like crazy. However if you have a standard WP blog with no ***** plugins and Wp-cache it will survive Digg fairly well. Their uptime is pretty good, maybe once every couple months for 10 minutes. I remember they were DDoSed and their ISP filitered it very fast, under 15 mins. They are a sister company of blue host, so you can google reviews on them if you'd like. Oh well digg down for affiliate code spam >.>
    • colincornaby, on 10/12/2007, -7/+9Why switch hosts? Already existing accounts aren't affected...
    • spyres, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2I've had good luck with HostRocket.Com over the last 4-5 years.
    • Blandyman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9colincornaby:

      He has 1and1, not Dreamhost. That's why he's considering switching.
    • EXreaction, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Whats wrong with 1&1?

      I have had 2 sites hosted by them for the last 6 months or so...and so far they have been great(especially for the price)...
    • eddanger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Retrix Hosting all the way, go with the little guy! But I'm a bit biased...
    • JeremyBanks, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I suggest http://asmallorange.com. They don't oversell (I like), they don't have any fake limits (databases, subdomains, etc.), their uptime is great and their support is fast and very helpful. They've also got a user support forum; with feedback and everything, they don't censor people who complain (not that there are very many of them), so you can see what you're going to be getting.

      I've been with them for more than two years and I love it,.
    • joshuakuhn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Try nexcess.net... I've been with them for going on 4 years... My site was down once and that's when they were moving everything into their own datacenter. I even had the lead programmer helping me out via AIM on his own time late one night and they moved me to a new box (w/ no downtime) over new years...

      Every review I've seen of them has also been positive so I'm not the only happy customer...
  • Rocketmac, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Wow, I've had my site there for 3 years (granted the first year was a wee rough) and have not had much complaint.
    Would I host mission-critical/lifeline business with them, maybe not. However, for my uses and price they do pretty well.

    To note, my site (rather images from my site) have handled HoFo traffic, TF traffic and some Digg traffic all with no problems.

    As for the "press release", I think this is a good idea for them.
  • minivanmegafun, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4jesus christ it's about time they did something about that.

    Let's see what the load averages are on lucas.dreamhost.com, shall we?

    minivan@lucas:~$ uptime
    22:55:16 up 56 days, 20:41, 1 user, load average: 3.70, 3.46, 3.48

    wonderful.
    • sc0tt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Most production servers would have loads similar to that.
    • HaxityHaxHaxed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Psh my dedicated server was on digg twice at same time, reddit, delicious, and slashdot. 30 load average at peak with a PHP cache, and WP-cache. Beat that. Btw that seems good for a large host...
  • fitchmicah, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22some people keep saying "wow dreamhost sucks BLABLABLA" but they have said NOTHING to back that up.
    • colincornaby, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13I've had a positive experience switching the Dreamhost. They have SVN, which you can't commonly find other places.
    • Comatose51, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@colincornbaby: Ditto here. I found one company who would do it for $5 a month with some crazy limits on my repository. DreamHost gives you that and a bunch of other stuff for free. I learned how to schedule backup jobs of my MySQL DBs and SVN repos from reading their wiki. Can't ask for more.
    • Alphabet, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6I can back it up. Dreamhost is great if you have a small low traffic website. But if you have a medium or high traffic one, it sucks ass.

      Problems:
      1) No scalability. If you have a medium or high traffic website, don't expect to be using dreamhost.
      2) If you want your own server, you have to pay $400 a month, and it's still only a virtual server.
      3) Dreamhost has a habit of putting medium/high traffic websites together on the same server. I spent two weeks on that ***** server. It was slow, SUPER slow. Bandwidth was slow, cpu speed was slow. Trying to connect to my site took 20+ seconds. Dreamhost won't kick you off, but imagine sharing one weak computer with several other high traffic sites. You'll be begging to leave.

      Dreamhost has an F rating by the better business bureau.

    • noisebleed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Well, they did have some noticeable growing pains this year, but the only major downtime was related to the heat wave in LA that caused the cooling systems at their data center to go down, and that's hardly Dreamhost's fault. Even though it was extremely irritating at the time, they were at least very forthcoming about the issue and posted detailed updates on their blogs which is more than a lot of companies might have done. In my experience these guys are about as good as you get for shared hosting, which of course is never going to be perfect.

      Also, that better business bureau rating is pretty specious.
    • kethraal, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"Dreamhost has an F rating by the better business bureau."

      That's because they have (as they have puclicly announced many times) decided not to ever respond to BBB complaints -- at least not the BBB. They _do_ respond to customer complaints, but they believe (and I agree) that the BBB is a waste of time.

      And it doesn't actually suck that much if you have a moderate-high traffic site. I host a site on them that goes through about 50GB of bandwidth a week, and I've never had any problems. Of course, I'm not exactly running wildly CPU-intensive scripts -- if I were, I'd have to move to a dedi -- but that's not really a function of Dreamhost, there's just no way to have a ton of CPU-heavy scripts running on a shared host.
    • mre5765, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1
      If you want super-reliable hosting, you have to pay more (ultimately you have
      to build you own data center and provision your own uplink). Since I neither want the
      hassle nor the cost (spam alone would eat my bandwidth, whereas dreamhost doesn't
      charge me for spam that I kill), I prefer to pay $8/month and live with the odd "sucky"
      outage.
    • limbikity, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5just checked the BBB site, according to them they have a rating of 'B'
    • bmwboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4To the user who said dreamhost had an F rating, they have a B, and for a good reason too!
      Research, then post....
      Thanks!
      Bmwboy
  • JHawk24821, on 10/12/2007, -13/+3Check these guys out: http://www.orcsweb.com They are not (even close to) the cheapest out there, but their uptime is great, and they host some pretty large sites and can handle Digg without breaking a sweat. Small company too, something like 10-15 people.
  • ddegner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Dreamhost has treated me better than any of the 3 other hosts I have used and it is by far the best value out there.
    • the3dolla, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1I disagree 1and1.com is a great value, I think it could be better.... Their business package gives 3 free domains...
    • dygitaljoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Dreamhost has the highest quality of customer support I have ever met. They continually prioritize their customers over their own agenda such as adding built in features to the service at no charge. I've been a customer for the past 4 years solid. However, yes they had a power outage and they were down - but they have spent millions in getting reliable power and resources so they can provide reliable service. Beyond that, their service is highly reliable and speedy. (My website on their servers is http://www.joemanna.com)
    • blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I agree that the support is EXCELLENT. They always answered my requests, and were always very kind. BUT...

      In the past year the quality has been going down constantly. Maybe they should offer much smaller numbers and bigger quality of service. I'd gladly have less bandwidth and have my sites actually work. My databases are down practically 5 minutes every hour. Or at least it seems so based on my experience. About one in every three times I use them my site is down. I use very _low_ bandwidth sites (such as Mantis Bug Database). I pay 19.95 month to a have a decent hosting for several secondary websites I run, but reallly if they could lower my bandwidth from 5000 gb per month to 20 GB, I'd be glad it this could ensure my mysql database with 1500 entries worked fast and didn't go down regularly for periods of 5 minutes.

      For those who speak French, I'd now recommend OVH.net which is far more reliable/fast.
    • renzien, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@joe
      Your website on their servers is... down - right now.
    • SPLASTiK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ renzien

      His site is fine, he just made an error typing the address. When you click the link it accidentally adds a ")" which makes the server not found. Remove it and there ya go.
  • jpatch, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1So is this why SmackJeeves is getting... smacked?
  • ralphdagza, on 10/12/2007, -8/+4(mt)
  • AngryBacon, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5Well, they have to stop the tubes from being clogged somehow!

    *ducks for cover*
    • dygitaljoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1They drop the lottery ball in there and flush the tubes. (Where the lottery ball consists of their own analysis of the problem and spending millions to fix it, and blogging it).
  • nikkie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I heart Dreamhost. Their service is awesome, and though their reliability was a bit low for a while, it was great before that, and has been great since. I highly recommend them. Oh, and their newsletters are hilarious.
  • the3dolla, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2www.1and1.com offers a similar service. Their default 9.95/mo plan offers 3 free domains. I think you can get it cheap now though, I have it locked in at 7.5/mo.
    • Rocketmac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wow. Too bad it's 1&1. :-)

      By the way, you can have unlimited domain hosting, sub-domain hosting, unlimited MySQL databases, unlimited email address AND FTP accounts with DH.

      I pay $100/year for static IP, 3 domains, 15 email addresses, 4 MySQL DB's (on separate servers), 4 ftp accounts, ~220GB Disk Space and alot of BW (not telling you all how much ).

      I have had a total of 15 minutes of downtime this past year (which is ok for me since it's not mission critical).
  • Mr.Chainsaw, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1Its all about Bluehost.com and Hostmonster. Best two hosts i have EVER SEEN
  • heff, on 10/12/2007, -12/+2too much spam from this company on digg... it's a web host for crying out loud!
    • EXreaction, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2Ya...and everything related to 1&1 gets buried down in the topic...

      A bunch of the people that work there don't visit digg a lot do they? :P
    • SurferBette, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1It would just be great if the affliate codes could stay in this particular and ON TOPIC article:
      http://digg.com/tech_deals/Dreamhost_Promo_Codes_for_Even_Cheaper_Hosting

      Yes, I have my code there too.

      We're talking about Dreamhost's disk and bandwidth, not codes, couldn't we keep the codes in one place where anyone who wants one can go look? And besides, your post is much less likely to be buried there.
  • Guder, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I love Dreamhost and after what 1and1 did to the blogger who was posting about Disney and their "shock Radio" station here in the Bay Area.... I'll be glad I got rid of 1and1.

    I'd give a coupon code for Dreamhost, but I'm sure you can get one (if you really want message me, or visit my blog and I'll kick you a nice discount.)

    I've had a few rough times (as had many this last summer) but it has been pretty good, and they've worked out some issues with me from a bad wordpress plugin that had slowed down my site. Plus they are the most flexible hoster that I've had to deal with in the last 6+ years.

  • serra, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Exactly what problems have you people had with Dreamhost? I've been there for over a year and a half now, and haven't had one single problem!
    • blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Easy. Pick a high quality dedicated server, such as ev1servers.net or ovh.net (I have servers on both these providers). Now try to connect to your website or (especially) database on dreamhost. If you do this continuously you'll notice how often they go down.

      I love the quality of support, the easy way you can configure even complicated DNS setups, everything unlimited and so on. But the main reason I switched all my 'secondary' websites from having my own machine to a managed webhosting was to have less trouble, not more. Previously all I did when writing to DH support was ask about features, configuration issues. Now all I do is click on the 'report outage' link, over and over again. And everytime it's fixed within 10 minutes, but still, it makes the web site unusable from a practical point of view. Imagine my anger each time I want to set a bug to 'fixed' and I get a timeout from the website and/or database.

  • Comatose51, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I've used them for a year now and haven't come remotely close to exhausting my allocated resources and my plan is the cheapest one. I'll renew even if the rates are higher and even if I don't need the resources because their service is simply AWESOME and they are innovative as hell. They don't just host your stuff. These guys know the stuff you have them host. They throw in shell accounts and version control services such as SVN as part of their plan. I'm talking about my puny economy plan. For a web developer like me, these guys simply rock. I've never had a host this good for so little.
  • diggmanic, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1Hopefully people don't believe this crap. He is doing this to increase short term signups. Just look at it, it drops than slowly goes up weekly again.
  • pthourson, on 10/12/2007, -8/+0Wanna save money on a signup?

    Use code "DIGGDISC" to save $80 on a new account and get a free domain.


    Let me know if you have problems.
  • butlershouse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I'll dig the story because I use them. I am happy that they are smart enough to make tough choices and commit to them.
  • rockwellpa, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3Ok, this is my industry. I write software for web hosts. I see this as a publicity stunt to compensate for overselling. Do fall fool. Choose web hosting based on real figures.
    • b3mus3d, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Bet you work for a rival company ;-)
  • heyvince, on 10/12/2007, -10/+0Use code "ZYXW" to save $75 on your year of hosting ... came out to like 15 bucks a year.
  • Cyanbane, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Dreamhost F'n rocks as a host.
  • eclipxe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2As many people mentioned, Dreamhost is great for developers. Free SVN with easy setup (built in auth editing, etc). Unlimited MySQL databases, FTP accounts, shell accounts...hell you can even compile your own software in your shell and run it in the background...Quicktime streaming, etc etc. So many great features for a kick-ass price. I love Dreamhost.
  • jake13jake, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Wow, this guy used literally and figuratively on the same statement. I didn't think anyone could have ever pulled that off.
  • visually, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've used Dreamhost for a while now and never had any problems with them. I've found they also answer their emails very quickly, whether it's a problem or just a general question.
  • dusco, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1DreamHost is a really really bad hosting provider, they will cut your host straight the ***** off without notice if u get alot of traffic
    • striker1211, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I had 3 servers use 1.5 TB last month and none of them were shut down, other than being hosed while people leeched.
  • robotz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4DreamHost are great if you want to get suckered in by all the masses of extras / disk space / bandwidth you apparently get. I recently closed my account there as it was coming up for renewal, and their performance during that time was utter crap. The server load was insanely high, the control panel would load only when it felt like it, the constant stream of downtime due to one issue or another really put me off. I would never host a proper commercial site there in my entire life (and I've built hundreds of them), it's just not worth the risk.

    I have serious doubts over their actual technical ability in-house. Anyone who's site was stuck in the middle of the whole core router issue they had recently will have trouble disagreeing with this. Those guys barely know what they are doing, plain and simple, and probably grew too fast for their actual knowledge and abilities. All the work they need to put into re-building their network into something that can actually cope now just smacks of this. If you need to make money from your web site, one way or another, use a real host. If you just need a coders playground, I won't argue, they're a good choice for the price.
  • fac3less, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Overall their reviews seem fairly decent:
    http://hostjury.com/reviews/DreamHost/

    This just looks like a marketing ploy if I've ever seen one. ;) They got on digg so I bet that has netted the several affiliates listed up there a boatload of cash.
    Just remember (in my opinion) purchasing realistic packages is the way to go.

    At those resource allocations the potential for nasty is higher.
    Ever receive 'disk full' errors on dreamhost? I know several who do every day.

    Overselling can be nasty.
  • lee101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I have to say this seems a really bad idea of theres, i mean virtually all companys oversell. When i signed up i got 20gig & 1tb bandwidth, and thought that was huge to alternatives that were offering like 800meg for the same price in the UK. But 200 gig was just huuge, and i don't care if they oversell, because as they explain in http://blog.dreamhost.com/2006/05/18/the-truth-about-overselling/ not everyone is going to use all that space at once. Another example of overselling is mobile company's (at least in the UK) at the new year it was virtually impossible to send a text/make a call, they were clearly overselling as they just couldn't handle the huge amounts of customers all at once, and this is a situation where overselling can be seen, and the faults in it, but you don't see people ringing up to complain to the phone company's about it, they get away with just telling everyone to make calls earlier on.

    I will certainly be sticking with dreamhost, until i need something bigger, as Other than the troubles in the summer they have been excellent, and at one time it was a bit slow, I asked to be moved onto another server, and on that there were no other users for about a month. Now thats pretty good service imo
    • fac3less, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I'll be fairly upfront.
      I have three dual xeons and do not use 1 terabyte of bandwidth overall.

      I'm just barely over the 20 gigabytes of space usage mark as well (due to multiple backups): It's not the resource allocations that make a difference.
      It's the IO.

      Does dreamhost do things a-okay?
      They're fairly decent but their support is lacking.

      In the end you really do get what you pay for.
  • Taran, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0I've found Dreamhost to be reliable for my blog and podcast. I've used hosting companies in the UK before I used Dreamhost and found them to be really expensive in comparison, especially when it comes to bandwidth.

    But reducing the bandwidth and disk quotas to give them back their reputation - that's just a marketing ploy that we're all helping with - by getting them more customers ;-)

    Oh, and if you use the code DIGGDUG you'll get a mystery amount off (up to $95)...

    Heck - they're good enough for me to recommend them to other people - and I want to stay with them :-)
    • fac3less, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Mmm, affiliate codes.
      Yum. No thanks.
  • martypal2005, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1Why do I keep hearing of dreamhost? Are they having some sort of silent marketing campaign. We aren't supposed to notice? Well dreamhost is dead and have been dead since 2005 now only suckers use it. Here is why.

    1. Godaddy is loosing customers and are desperate to get them back.
    2. Their user knowledge base, wiki and their email respond systems are horrible compared to the splendid user support at godaddy (24 hour phone support, no questions asked). I find this particularly important especially when I create websites for other companies, I don't have to deal with all their support I just give them a phone number to call.
    3. Compare the prizes to godaddy you'll see they are over prized.
    4. At the time I was using dreamhost there was always the issue with php 4.x and 5.x (not supporting 5.x) and mysql pre 5 and 5.x. At dreamhost you can choose between php 4 and 5 and also if you want linux of windows server.
    5. Their Las Vegas Casino marketing tricks can only get them so far. Perhaps the right thing in 2004 but customers have moved on to a more professional market. I do not feel so enticed anymore by everything that is blinking and says "free" and also asks for a code. In my opinion it lowers their credibility and also it's a hassle to always deal with the sign on bonus and codes.

    Next time perhaps concider godaddy and let the market show them that they need to change their way of running their hosting company or they are toast. Just because its working doesnt mean its good. And yes I've used dreamhost for several projects. I know its working but they have been surpassed in prizing and quality by godaddy.
    • blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2The main problem with godaddy? Their webdesign is just too flashy. I used it only once for a customer (after hearing about it on diggnation, no *****) but there is too much crap flying all over. Those guys really need a 'the google way' course.
    • martypal2005, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1blackjack75: If you cant get your brain around their user interface then perhaps you shouldnt be doing websites at all. http://www.brainydays.co.uk/images/Hammer%20Peg.gif
    • dford, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've had very bad experiences with Godaddy's support. They were not able to answer my questions, and after i told them that a couple of times, they just didn't answer me anymore.

      Dreamhost, however, I love it. Only used their support once, but it was a proper answer, and I was even encouraged to rate it.
  • rbieber, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I've been a Dreamhost customer since 2001. Sure, there have been some rough spots recently, but overall I rate them highly. I've rarely had problems and when I have their support has been excellent. I continue to recommend friends to Dreamhost because for the money, the service is great and its rare to find a company that speaks so honestly to their customers.
    • metalgod79, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I have had them since about 2000-2001 myself. Had minimal issues. Customer service is top notch. And for me its cheap as hell.
  • cowboystyle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1When I signed up for Dreamhost 3 years ago I used the '777' code, which got me their starter plan plus domain registration for a whopping $7.95. Although I haven't done terribly much with the space since then, it comforts me to know that I've got around 220GB Space /2TB Transfer just chilling. DH is the bomb.
    • martypal2005, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Well the two concecutive years they have charged you over 100 dollars.
  • niczar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2If you speak French, here's a better deal than anything you can find in the US: http://www.dedibox.fr

    €29.9/month, dedicated box with 160G, 1G ram, 100Mbit/s connectivity and *unmetered* bandwidth.

    They can do it that cheap as it's from the 2nd largest ISP in France, and they have mostly inbound traffic. They have therefore plenty of outbound bandwidth to spare.

    http://www.dedibox.fr/datacenter/visite_datacenter.html

    They have massive peering with just about anywhere.
    • fac3less, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1100mbps unmetered at that price?
      Are you kidding?

      Even using the "largest isps in France" doesn't suddenly make that bandwidth offering feasible. 100mbits of connectivity here in Canada would be about 6,000 dollars a month for a decent provider (Yes, you can get better rates if you go for higher commits -- but not *that* much better) and they're selling that much bandwidth for €29.9/month?

      Ha.
    • Esteanil, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Important !! Le service Dedibox n'est ouvert qu'aux résidents en france métropolitaine.

      Warning !! Dedibox service is only open for french residents (no international sales)."
    • niczar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Even using the "largest isps in France" doesn't suddenly make that bandwidth offering feasible. 100mbits of connectivity here in Canada would be about 6,000 dollars a month for a decent provider (Yes, you can get better rates if you go for higher commits -- but not *that* much better) and they're selling that much bandwidth for €29.9/month?"

      I've had one of those boxes for a few months, it runs Azureus, I use it to download & seed Democracy Now! torrents. I have sent almost a terabyte.

      So yeah, it's feasible.

      And yeah, as has been mentioned, it appears to be only for people residing in France. Well get a French person to pay for your box, I guess.

  • kevincw01, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2uhh, i was just about to sign up and before clicking 'submit', I clicked on their control panel link 'https://panel.dreamhost.com/'. It is still loading as I type this... When I first clicked on 'sign up' from the pricing page the same thing happened and I thought it was a fluke. no way in hell am I gonna switch to them if they can't even load balance their purchasing page.
  • vramdal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1DreamHost is great for personal and low traffic websites. However, I wouldn't recommend them if you need 99.99% uptime. For my purposes though, I'm more than happy with 99.50%. Their support is awesome, and the feature set is second to none.
  • mre5765, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2 I switched to dreamhost after my mom/pop ISP systematically
    eliminated things I needed (shell access, cron) and kept churning the spam protection
    (the last straw with my old ISP was when they rejected all email from AOL.com).

    I'm a very happy w/ dreamhost. They have essentially unlimited disk space, bandwidth,
    shell accounts, mail accounts, mailinglists, subdomains, not to mention CVS and SVN,
    and many other goodies. More stuff than I personally could possibly use, but
    it is comforting that my ISP won't ever limit me.

    The dreamhost staff seems to be very experienced and helpful.

    http://www.dreamhost.com/hosting.html

  • slantyeyed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1my only problem with dreamhost is that the couple Wordpress sites I've installed have always been very slow (as opposed to using the same site / db on another host) . . . Gallery is even SLOWER (i'm guessing this might be with the actual server I'm on - seamus) . . . but the customer service is better than other hosts I've used. Who knows if you can be transferred to different server with Dreamhost?

    and be warned, those discount codes are only good for NEW CUSTOMERS. You can't renew hosting with those codes and have to buy it at regular price. But a year is good enough to know if you'll want to stay with them or not.
    • crackhead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree. My Gallery site on Dreamhost is frustratingly slow, and they haven't helped at all. Plus they no longer support using your email as an POP/IMAP/SMTP username...you must use their obfuscated usernames to log in. I've used quite a few hosts, and I've never been forced to use a username like "m8374979x" instead of my email address. I have to look up the username every time I setup a new mail client. What a pain in the ass.
    • c0nsumer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Just FYI, I switched to DreamHost around June or July of this year and had to leave rather soon after. Because of the MySQL speed problems you are describing Gallery and MediaWiki were dirt slow on my site, with often 10-20 second loads on images in Gallery which hadn't been viewed in a while. This was completely unacceptable. I also had problems with support not being very good at times (one person couldn't read a hosts.deny). There were the network slowness issues, problems with disk access speed (~ for you is on NFS, and MD5ing a CD image would take 20-30 minutes) which I was told is just how things are there. Spam filtering was also rather awful, and with their automatic quarantine system which can't be accessed via imap (only SquirrelMail) it was hard for some of my users to manage their spam.

      For as long as I was there users couldn't change their email passwords without something falling out of sync and them becoming locked out.

      I ended up going back to a local colocation provider at $50/mo for a 1U or mid-tower and I'm really happy again. The site(s) all load quick, spam filtering works great, and I'm just overall happier.

      Oh, and their 97-day (or whatever) money back guarantee worked, and I was refunded the $260 or so that I paid immediately. At least that part of DH works right.
  • ejpusa, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1I've been a big fan for awhile, this is the MAX code, I make $0 (i think?). Just because I love you guys so much! :-)
    HIPSTER
  • crackhead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2All I know is that after I switched to Dreamhost, our domain went from receiving less than 10 spam messages a week (our addresses were never used publicly), to at least 20 a day. That may not be a horrible onslaught, but it has been a MAJOR disappointment. And their spam filtering software is only accessible via the awful SquirrelMail webmail interface.
  • jubba, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't know why they get so much stick. I've been with them for a couple of years and I've only had two outages. One was when there was the massive power failure and they were still able to email me back and explain the situation. The other was due to a hardware error. I emailed them and they told me it would be up in a few hours (which it was) but offered to move me to a different server.

    This thing's a load of crap though. Anybody that doesn't understand the concept of overselling shouldn't be allowed near a computer anyway.
  • mofotronimus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2i love dreamhost.
  • iMyst, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Who hosts Digg?
  • erathean, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Wow! Isn't it easy to get promotional material to the frontpage of Digg. They clearly can't support their current customers that well so it seems on the only real way to fix problems is to cut limits for all users. Doesn't it seem like this is just another marketing trick?
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