Any Dreamhost users?

[ApeZone]

Any one else using Dreamhost for their company website? I switched to them at the beginning of the year and find my website to be either really slow or down more times that I've ever experienced with the 2 other service providers I've had in the past. Anyone else having problems with them?

I'm trying to develop some php stuff and half the time it becomes unworkably slow. Emails to them talk of ironing out problems. Is it possible that my website was put on an overloaded server? Anyone ever have this problem?

It becomes such a pain finding a new company to host on, but with a game coming out soon that relies on my host for multiplayer games, I'm running out of options.

thanks,

[Frozen In Ice]

What are you looking for in a host? Cheap, fast and dependable? Never found one. Tried a few and had nothing but problems. I eventually found an excellent hosting company,which I have mentioned here before, but I think most people here are looking for $7 a month hosting. If it works for them, I wish them the best, but I never had much luck with it. I found too many cheap hosting plans overselling the server resulting in slow response. It's definately not something I wanted.

[ApeZone]

My main stumbling block is the need to compile a few C programs on the server. Lots of hosting companies don't allow this anymore. Other than that, it's not about finding the cheapest.

I use to use tera-byte.com with good effect, but when I tried to move to their newer plan (had one of their archaic plans), it presented a lot of problems and they didn't support C compiling.

I think my bandwidth, diskspace, etc. are modest. I need something that's dependable and fast. I wonder how much of this is the random crap shoot of getting a server with good/bad "neighbors" on it?

So Frozen In Ice, is it Dewahost or Liquid Web (from your past posts), that you'd recommend? Or have you moved on?

[mustardseed]

I've never had any problems with Dreamhost. Any php stuff I've done has worked fine. I used to run a music download site from my account, and I was averaging about 4-5 gigs in download bandwidth a day and it worked flawlessly.

[wazoo]

*waves* Dreamhost user over here as well..

Can't complain at all. *shrug*.

[Tom Ohle]

I just switched over to Bluehost.com and they've been fantastic so far. Site's always fast, support was quick... I'd definitely recommend them (I'm still paying for an unused hosting account at IXWebHosting because they just didn't cut it for me).

[FlySim]

We use Dreamhost. Seems to work well, but there is some downtime. One thing I do like is that they keep giving us more bandwidth and diskspace to match the newer plans.

[Nexic]

I'm with them and have mixed feelings. Sometimes the site goes down or is a little slow but in general it's good and no doubt it's insanely good value for money, even if they are overselling.

Originally I switched from Lunarpages 40gb/month to Dreamhost because it offered 200gb for the same amount. Now Lunar pages offers 800gb, and dreamhost 1000gb. So might go back since Lunar pages seemed to be more reliable.

[Curiosoft]

Originally Posted by ApeZone

So Frozen In Ice, is it Dewahost or Liquid Web (from your past posts), that you'd recommend? Or have you moved on?

I have used Dewahost and can recommend them. If you need quick support and great customer service, go with them. They have resolved issues very quickly and very flexible when it comes to taking care of your hosting needs; I have exceeded bandwidth limits multiple times and they have given me a fair amount of free bandwidth.

Recently, I've moved some stuff over to hostgator.com and they seem to be good for basic hosting and offer a lot of cheap bandwidth (at least, I thought it was cheap bandwidth until I started reading posts about 1TB and 800 GB transfers for 6.95).

Later,
Curiosoft

[HalfLucifer]

I have not host my own website yet,
however, I read a lot of threads in webhostingtalk.com knowing that hostgator.com has a very good reputation.
I'll definitely list it at my #1 choice for website hosting.

[Game Producer]

I haven't used Dreamhost, so I cannot personally tell much about it. Maybe you could ask about them and tell that you are experiences tiny problems with their service.

I definitely recommend checking out webhostingtalk.com reviews - in case you are considering a new host.

We used Hostgator in the past, and it worked fine for us. We tried PowerVPS ... but had bad experiences with their virtual private host, so we moved to LiquidWeb dedicated - and it's been ultra fast.

[Sharpfish]

I use dreamhost for all my sites. A few months back they were having major problems on my shared server and my sites were often down for 5-10 mins at a time (not good). However, for the last month or so they have been pretty solid.

Their support and value is definitley good but you will sometimes pay the price of a "cheap host" with lots of users. If it's mission critical then get your own server somewhere else, if not then Dreamhost is more than good enough.

[Frozen In Ice]

Originally Posted by ApeZone

My main stumbling block is the need to compile a few C programs on the server. Lots of hosting companies don't allow this anymore. Other than that, it's not about finding the cheapest.

I use to use tera-byte.com with good effect, but when I tried to move to their newer plan (had one of their archaic plans), it presented a lot of problems and they didn't support C compiling.

I think my bandwidth, diskspace, etc. are modest. I need something that's dependable and fast. I wonder how much of this is the random crap shoot of getting a server with good/bad "neighbors" on it?

So Frozen In Ice, is it Dewahost or Liquid Web (from your past posts), that you'd recommend? Or have you moved on?

Not Liquid Web. Several fellow developers I know have moved from there. We're all located with Dewahost. As for running a c program on the server, just ask their technical support to be sure

[Dyno Kid]

DreamHost here too.

Not noticed any problems and customer support is solid with fast responce times and very helpful to a noob like me...

Darren.

[ApeZone]

Hmm, I bet they're overselling. This seems to be the way with the cheaper services these days. I just seem to be on a really loaded server. I asked them to move me, so we'll see what happens. I too have always found their support fast.

All this extra bandwidth and resources they give us is great, given you have a website that runs fast enough. It does sound like a gimick, though. I'd trade it in a heartbeat for a faster, less crowded server.

Yes, I've used webhostingtalk.com in the past and found the very good tera-byte.com service. A great resource, but lets face it, there's so many to choose from. I went with dreamhost after looking at the Webhosting overview post in the Indie Basics forum. As I've said, this is my 3rd host. My last host had too many security problems causing the site to go down too many times.

I've looked into Dewahost and it looks very positive. They do give you access to a c/c++ compiler. I'd of course, ask before joining, to be sure. If dreamhost doesn't pan out in the next couple of days, I guess I'll be moving again. That would be a real pisser, though. So much to do, so little time.

Thanks to all that replied. I'll keep you posted.

[Escapee]

I'm currently with P4host and Lunarpages( really like their free coffeeshop softwares ) . Both of them give me little or no trouble so far .

[Diragor]

FWIW, pair Networks was the fastest and most reliable web hosting service I've ever used. It's way more expensive than these other guys from a storage space and monthly allowance perspective, but for a site that *really* needs to stay up it's probably worth the premium. Note that it's been maybe 3 years since I used them, but I'd bet that they're still doing business the same way they did for the years I was with them.

[cliffski]

Originally Posted by HalfLucifer

I read a lot of threads in webhostingtalk.com knowing that hostgator.com has a very good reputation.
I'll definitely list it at my #1 choice for website hosting.

not my fave people right now. My site is totally down and they have no idea why. I suspect it had downtime overnight too. This means I need to claim my money back under the terms of service, so that should be interesting.

I can't say I'd recommend them right now.

[Matthew]

Originally Posted by ApeZone

It does sound like a gimick, though. I'd trade it in a heartbeat for a faster, less crowded server.

I run a DH account for download mirrors off Fun-Motion. They do oversell, but--they'll also move your account to a different server at your request. The first server my account ended up on had networking issues that resulted in consistently poor download speeds. They moved it to a different box and things have been peachy since.

DH is dirt cheap--much cheaper than their published prices. If you prepay for a year with a coupon code you'll end up paying ~$30, which is, what, $2.50/month? Just Google "dreamhost coupon" or have an existing DH user generate one for you (they're actually referral codes where the user generating them can choose the discount amount while pocketing the remainder).

That said, our primary box is dedicated hardware. DH is an awfully nice personal account and bandwidth mirror, though.

[ApeZone]

Well, Dreamhost got back to me with the message:
------------------
"Hello,

Unfortunately, it may not be the best idea to move your account right now. Since the slow loading may be the result of a filer problem here at DreamHost. Our admins are working on the filer problem, but don't have an exact ETA as of yet.

So if we were to move your account, the same slow loading could take place. Thus, it may be best to stay were you are at until the admins complete their work."
-------------------------
I'm tempted to move on but really dread the work of moving things over, especially given the knowledge that DH probably could move me to a less loaded server and solve my problems.

Would love to go the dedicated server route, but it's not my dayfor it yet.

Thanks for the coupon search idea Matthew, I'll look into it. That would make it a great bandwidth mirror.

[wazoo]

Originally Posted by ApeZone

Well, Dreamhost got back to me with the message:
------------------
"Hello,

Unfortunately, it may not be the best idea to move your account right now. Since the slow loading may be the result of a filer problem here at DreamHost. Our admins are working on the filer problem, but don't have an exact ETA as of yet.

So if we were to move your account, the same slow loading could take place. Thus, it may be best to stay were you are at until the admins complete their work."
-------------------------

Hmm last month they had really bad filer problems which spanned several days until things were (more or less) marked as "Resolved".

I wonder if the same problem has come back to bite them now?

[DFG]

I just moved away from DreamHost after a little over a month. There is a lot of cool stuff they offer like 1 click installs on popular extras and high bandwidth allocation. However, bandwidth usage stats varied considerably from my previous host and the dedicated server I have now - DH was way higher. Not sure what was going on there.

The positives is their support got back to me very quickly and they have a generous refund policy of 97 days. You can also add plans on top of the one you have very easily to grab more bandwidth if you need it.

[Sharpfish]

All my dreamhost sites are down atm.. YMMV

[ApeZone]

I too have found my bandwidth to be much higher than normal after I switched, and without the normal benefits that usually come with that ($$).

They seem to have a lot of "filter" problems. I wonder if script kiddies are hacking their servers on a regular basis? This was the problem with my last host provider.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

I've used Dreamhost for maybe 10 months for my low volume corporate site and it's been solid.

HOWEVER, my next game uses a global high-score system that hits the server for upload/download, and there's a lot of inconsistency in mySQL response times (i.e. normal is ~50 ms, but roughly every 5th request takes from 3000-12000 ms). Their support people are responsive, but basically said "that's the way it is".

Now, in the last few days, things seem to have gotten much worse. Site up and down, response times on average much lower, etc.

I use Lunarpages for a personal blog, and that's been solid for a year and a half - may switch corporate to that...

My issue is that it's really hard to tell who is good and bad. You can see a bullet-list of features, bandwidth limits, and costs, but the really important data is up/down time, and response time. Lots of anecdotal responses, but little that's objective that you can look at across a range of hosts.

Is there any site that tests all the main providers in a consistent fashion, by say, pinging some of their servers at regular intervals to generate such data/comparisons?

p.s. - the reason I've got time to post here is my site (www.newcrayon.com) is down at this very moment, and I can't continue to test the SQL stuff I was working on while it's down. Bleah...

[edit - this site is the best I've found for comparing virtual hosters INCLUDING a measure of reliability
http://www.webhostingjury.com/
]

[Phil Steinmeyer]

What is this 'filter' thing they (Dreamhost) are talking about anyways?

[Phil Steinmeyer]

To get more to the point, right now you have two choices:

1) Cheap service, provided on virtual server, running alongside ??? other people's cheap service

2) Dedicated server. You know you've got 100% of the box, and therefore, assuming your own uses are well-behaved, you should have very good uptime, response time, etc.

The problem is that there's about a 10-fold difference in price between 1 & 2, and also a drastic difference in quality.

What I'd like is perhaps a quarter of a dedicated box, but not one of the virtual plans where I'm one of 100+ people running on it.

What is the best value for a dedicated server? Are there any sites using virtual servers that provide a meaningful guarantee that they're not overcrowding and that they will provide decent service?

[ApeZone]

HOWEVER, my next game uses a global high-score system that hits the server for upload/download, and there's a lot of inconsistency in mySQL response times (i.e. normal is ~50 ms, but roughly every 5th request takes from 3000-12000 ms). Their support people are responsive, but basically said "that's the way it is".

Interesting. May explain some of what I'm seeing with my own multiplayer development. Hmm, this may not be the best place for this kind of development. In the end we may need to have one host for our corporate websites, another for downloads, and another if you have any online services.

I'd check on the details of their "filter" problems for you, but I can't connect to their dreamhoststatus.com to look it up!

[aaron]

Originally Posted by Phil Steinmeyer

What I'd like is perhaps a quarter of a dedicated box, but not one of the virtual plans where I'm one of 100+ people running on it.

What is the best value for a dedicated server? Are there any sites using virtual servers that provide a meaningful guarantee that they're not overcrowding and that they will provide decent service?

HostPC (http://www.hostpc.com/) is introducing a service like that... semi-dedicated servers.

Details here: http://www.hostpc.com/community/showthread.php?t=2729

I've been hosting with them for just over a year now and they have been absolutely fantastic... fast support and they keep everyone in the loop with regards to anything that might be going on (ie- last year they had some servers in Florida affected by the bad weather... they kept everyone up-to-date with practically hourly updates on the status). I never feel like they are hiding anything. The prices are reasonable and the uptime has been great.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

Originally Posted by aaron

HostPC (http://www.hostpc.com/) is introducing a service like that... semi-dedicated servers.

Details here: http://www.hostpc.com/community/showthread.php?t=2729

I've been hosting with them for just over a year now and they have been absolutely fantastic... fast support and they keep everyone in the loop with regards to anything that might be going on (ie- last year they had some servers in Florida affected by the bad weather... they kept everyone up-to-date with practically hourly updates on the status). I never feel like they are hiding anything. The prices are reasonable and the uptime has been great.

Interesting. $33/month buys you 1/5 of a P4 2.8 server. Might be worthwhile. Now I'm debating between that and just trying to move up the reliability ladder at http://www.webhostingjury.com/

WebHostingJury's ratings seem credible. I've used 3 hosts listed there, and my experiences correspond closely with the ratings. HostExcellence (rated poorly on WHJ) was quite bad. Dreamhost (middle rating) is so-so. Lunarpages (rated well) has been solid for me, though I'm not sure how hard I've pushed it.

So I might either move my biz server to Lunarpages or a higher rated virtual server, or try HostPC's stuff. The slightly worrying thing about HostPC is that they don't even show up in the charts at WHJ. Must be a small operator - which may not be a bad thing, but I just hate dancing from webhost to webhost - it's a pain in the neck.