I myself use DreamHost. Some people swear by them (including me). Others swear at them. That’s okay with me. Love me; hate me; there’s no money inbetween. That said, DreamHost doesn’t meet everyone’s needs. I hope to outgrow them eventually, but I expect to continue to use them for a long time to come.

Here’s what DreamHost does and doesn’t provide:

• DreamHost runs their own infrastructure.
• DreamHost is located in in California, employee-owned and operated.
• Whenever I’ve submitted a support request to DreamHost, a knowledgeable professional has responded to it, and within a reasonable time.
• With DreamHost, you submit support requests via the DreamHost control panel. For the more expensive hosting plans, you can request a phone callback in extreme circumstances. But these phone calls are limited to a certain number per month.
• DreamHost has a history of trying to work with its customers when things don’t go right.
• DreamHost has an open tech-support policy, including a real-time status blog. Their tech-support staff posts the status of any system-wide problems here.
• DreamHost has an extensive support documentation wiki. I use it frequently when experimenting with new software, using DreamHost’s many features, and researching requirements for specific projects.
• DreamHost measures the bandwidth you use over a whole month. And they allow you to measure your bandwidth easily on your account’s control panel. The control panel also includes an estimate of how much bandwidth you will use during the remainder of the month, based on how fast your account has been using bandwidth. This makes it easy to see how much unused bandwidth you have for unexpected bandwidth spikes.
• If it looks like you need more bandwidth, you have 3 options: You can pay extra for the extra bandwidth, but this is expensive. Or you can upgrade your plan, but this requires a commitment, even if you don’t end up using the bandwidth. Or you can throttle your site, that is, turn away some visitors in order to try to stay within the bandwidth limit.
• DreamHost also increases your bandwidth limit every month you keep your account. That is, they reward customer loyalty with more bandwidth at no additional cost.
• DreamHost allows you to see how much disk space your account is using, right on the control panel. This makes it easy to see how much space you have left, as you upload files to your website.
• DreamHost has a flexible CPU limit policy. If your website threatens to bring down the web host, they’ll ask you to reduce its usage. But they’ll also try to work with you to resolve the problem. Depending on what kind of site you have and what software you’re using, this could be a problem if you get slashdotted.
• DreamHost will register domain names for you as well as host your websites. This is pretty standard. What is unusual about DreamHost’s offer is that their domain name service includes private registration at no additional cost. This allows you to keep your name and address secret, not published in the public WhoIs database.
• DreamHost allows you to host an unlimited number of domain names and sub-domains from a single account.
• DreamHost also allows you to set up an unlimited number of databases on a single account.
• DreamHost offers one-click installs for several popular web application software packages, including WordPress and Joomla. In reality, you need to configure most software after you install it, so it’s not really “one click.” But it’s way easier than installing it manually. Unfortunately, they do not include a one-click install for Drupal, which is the CMS I prefer.
• DreamHost supports a broad range of web application software with all their hosting plans. There is very little that DreamHost can’t do. Look on the DreamHost wiki for advice regarding a wide array of web apps.
• DreamHost also supports embedded Flash audio and video, QuickTime media streaming, discussion lists, Jabber, Subversion, SSH, Frontpage Extensions (shudder), and other features. They do not support IIS (if you care) or external DNS servers like ZoneEdit.
• DreamHost does not offer an SLA. They also do not have distributed, redundant servers. They do have a redundant network infrastructure, as most hosting providers do. And according to Hyperspin, DreamHost is up about 99.5% of the time.
• DreamHost offers a 97-day money-back guarantee for all their hosting packages. And yes, it’s real. But read the fine print.

As you can tell, I’m satisfied with DreamHost. But there are other good hosting providers. As I said, web hosting is a commodity.

As an alternative, midPhase comes highly recommended from a number of sources, including Brian Clark (of CopyBlogger.com), who swears by them.

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