I love Dreamhost, and yeah, this post might sound a bit like a sales pitch, and in a way it is, after-all I do get a kick back on people I refer to Dreamhost. But they’re having a sale that’s almost over (end of August) and it’s such a good deal I figured I’d give y’all the pitch. First though, here’s the details on their “triple sale”:
Sign up for our Code Monster hosting plan and you’ll save 50% off our normal pricing! You’ll pay just $19.95 per month instead of the usual $39.95! (Get 20% off for two-year pre-pay too!)
These two sales will remain in effect for as long as you keep your account active with DreamHost! Sign up for two years of Code Monster and you’ll get 192GB of bandwidth and 7680MB of disk space for just $15.95/month, forever! You can’t lose!
They’ve got other deals as well, but this is what I did and it’s been great.
Having said that, let me explain why I like them. Dreamhost been a great help in making sites like this one possible as well as allowing me to spend time writing and thinking and not setting up servers and e-mail and installing CMS systems. I recommend them because I’m totally jazzed about their service and think it’s an almost unbeatable deal.
I was asked recently about hosting and I’ve got a great story about Dreamhost and the origins of To-Done that I think is interesting and a true testament to what I consider a great service.
I had the idea for this site one afternoon and, as I like to do, I jumped on it. I registered the domain via their Web panel, that took me all of 5 minutes and cost me $14. Whew, domain out of the way. I then transfered that domain to a full hosted domain under my current plan. It cost me nothing and took just about an hour to get up and running.
(I think it’s pretty crazy that I’ve got 5 fully hosted domains and it costs me under $10 a month…)
Then I went in and set up a new WordPress installation with Dreamhosts 1-click WP install. That took about 10 minutes and was pretty darn painless. It truly is a “1-click” install, you have to do a bit once it’s up, but it’s very easy. Once that was done I had the site set up and ready to go. I did my first post about an hour later.
So, to sum up, I went from inital idea to posting content in about 3 hours. Now if that’s not a testiment to GTD, I don’t know what is.
Anyway, if you’re looking for a good host, give Dreamhost a try. I’ve had nothing but goodness from them, they’re a great deal and hey, once you’ve signed up you can refer other people to them like I do and make some extra money. Along the way you’ll find that their service is quite good, they offer quite a few “self-service” bonuses like the 1-click installs (great for DIYers) and they’ve got an outstanding community of people like me who are behind them and willing to lend a hand if you need help.
They’ve also got a great newsletter and a really funny blog…
i love dreamhost. they’re great. been using them for years.
I recently signed up for this exact deal, and in fact through Keith the referral credit.
Until about two weeks ago, the service/hosting was just as described above. Simple control panel, one click installs, etc.
Then while browsing my bank statement online I noticed a strange $44 charge from Dreamhost. Knowing that I paid in full for my two years worth of the CodeMonster plan, I jumped on and sent them a support comment. I was happy when they left me a voicemail (a real person actually called!) and said that it was a very strange occurrence and that someone else’s domain registration had been charged to my account. None the less, they said it would be taken care of and they apologized for the inconvenience.
Unfortunately the credit hadn’t appeared with in a few days so I sent another email. Again a quick response, “oops, I will put it through RIGHT NOW”. Three days later still nothing on my account.
At this point I asked my bank if there was anything on there end that would be stopping a credit – nope.
So, yet another email to Dreamhost, another quick response, and still no results.
Yesterday I sent my most irate email yet, got another quick response and have seen nothing. Keith, other DH users, can you give me any advice?? For all of the great praise I read about DH, I sure am disappointed in this instance of customer service.
Rick
Can’t say I agree with you on this one. I switched to them and ran into real severe performance issues. They didn’t seem to care that a simple php script that took .008 seconds to run on my previous host took 3.58 seconds or more to run on their servers. I’m no programmer, so I can’t pinpoint the difference in the base operating system that might have caused this, but Dreamhost didn’t seem to care.
So, I’m glad you can endorse them, but I cannot
Rick – I’ve never had anything like that happen. I will say I’ve had something similar happen to me (not with Dreamhost) and I went through the same steps and it still took forever to get sorted. When you’re dealing with banks and credits, things take time. I’d be more inclined to think it’s held up in a bank somewhere.
Fine James — I can see how that’s frustrating. But then again, it was probably your script. Did you try the KB?
I recently signed up and am loving it so far.
I have also been using dreamhost for a long time and I can say by far they are the best web host on the market, try and you will not regret.
I switched from OVH (French) to DH and I’m totally satisfied, they do a great job with support and features. I was not satified by OVH’s admin panel, features and offers, so I looked around for a new hosting and found DH (through zeldman.com). I was astonished by the offers. I opted for the $7,95/month plan and I’m totally satisfied.
Can you imagine I only had 1 MySQL database at OVH ?? Unbelievable.
My problem for support is time shifts because I live in Brussels, but it’s okay.
My preferred feature ? Suggestions !
I’m definately going to take a look. I’ve got a 200mb package which allows me to host up to 5 domains and it costs me £9 per month ($14). I had a quick check of the various options and the $7.95 package looks great and more than ample for my needs. However knowing what I’m like with domain names it might not be enough so I’m considering the Code Monster package.
I’m e-mailing them some questions to help me make the decision. Keith, if I do sign up how do I put you down as a referrer? (you can e-mail me if you like).
I’ve been using Dreamhost since the beginning of the year and haven’t really had any problems with it. I think once my database went down for a day or so and another time the site was down for about an hour. Both times I was still able to log into the panel and check my account and the announcements.
Rick, I had a problem like this with another host I was with, and it does take a while to get things sorted out, because sometimes the holdup is on the bank’s end. If you are firm but not nasty, you may be able to get a credit to your account for the trouble.
Just as an update to my comment above, it has now been 3.5 weeks, 1 response phone call, and 6 response e-mails and I have yet to see any of my $44 back.
You can get 1 year hosting for $27.4 at DreamHost using the COUPON: WAIVER