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DreamHost vs DigitalOcean Review [current_date format=’Y’]. Which one is superior ?

Satyendra Prasad

February 4, 2023

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Those who work online, like blogging or online businesses (small or big), need a secure web host to store their website data and provide an easily accessible platform for their clients. Various web hosts offer their services, and choosing the right host is tedious. So we took the time to compare the two popular hosts(DreamHost vs DigitalOcean).

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A summary table to quickly compare: (DreamHost vs DigitalOcean)

Winner: DreamHost

With DreamHost, you will get all the standard features delivered by the traditional hosts, whereas DigitalOcean focuses on cloud hosting, so DreamHost is the evident winner here.

About DreamHost and DigitalOcean

DreamHost vs DigitalOcean: A side-by-side comparison

These two are popular web hosts, but their service methods differ. The features provided by DreamHost are the regular features that a host contains, whereas DigitalOcean is particularly a Cloud hosting provider. So their approach is different. You will not get the free features offered by DreamHost in DigitalOcean.

Unlike DreamHost, DigitalOcean offers very few options for customer support. It has only ticket-based support. So for better customer support, one should move to DreamHost.

DreamHost is suitable for those with less technical knowledge as it has a user-friendly interface, Whereas DigitalOcean is suitable for developers who can manage their websites independently.

After getting a quick detail of these two hosts, we will now explore some more hidden features and offerings. Then we will assess how they differ in certain metrics. 

1. Key Hosting Features: (DreamHost vs DigitalOcean)

 DreamHost Features

• Free SSL security

• Free domain name

• 1-Click WordPress installer

• Free automatic backups

• 97-day money-back guarantee

• Unlimited storage

Free SSL security

SSL certificate is crucial for securing user data, preventing attackers from creating fake versions, and verifying website ownership. DreamHost offers this security free on all plans, which is an advantage to those preparing to purchase its plan.

Free domain name

What if a host offers a free domain name for the first year of purchasing a plan? Well, Dreamhost equips this feature so that you can enjoy this feature free of cost for the very first year, but after that, it costs $15.95/year.

1-Click WordPress installer

DreamHost comes with a WP website builder, and makes the process easy. Its one-click installer allows you to install WordPress and is one of the most effective WordPress hosts.

Free automatic backups

A host must keep the client’s data safe and secure by supplying daily backups. DreamHost offers free daily backups, so it’s a sort of gift.

97-day money-back guarantee

DreamHost has another great feature to share with its users: a huge 97-day money-back guarantee. Your 97-day trial is completely risk-free, and if you don’t like its service, ask for compensation.

Please note this is only applicable to shared hosting and those who purchase through credit cards and Google checkouts.

Unlimited storage

All plans include unmetered bandwidth and storage; if you want unlimited storage, you can upgrade to higher goals. Only the Shared starter plan comes with 50GB of storage, and the rest is infinite.

DigitalOcean Features

• Limited storage

• Bandwidth allowance

• App Platform 

• CMS Support

• E-Commerce Integration

• Database Support

• 60-day free trial

Limited storage

With DigitalOcean, a clear and pre-determined storage limit is associated. This storage limit can increase further when needed.

Bandwidth allowance

DigitalOcean outlines the amount of data uploaded by any user and downloaded by their website visitors. They can expand it at an additional cost to accommodate web traffic.

App Platform

The App platform is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), which allows the developers to publish code directly to the servers of DigitalOcean without worrying about the infrastructure.

CMS Support

DigitalOcean provides a variety of content management systems to manage the website. It offers one-click installation of CMS tools and also supports multiple versions of web frameworks.

E-Commerce Integration

In DigitalOcean, you can install eCommerce tools to help grow your website, such as shopping carts, which are available at an extra fee.

Database Support

DigitalOcean comes with various database support like MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, and many more. You can easily manage it in the control panel.

60-day free trial

DgitalOcean doesn’t offer a money-back guarantee; instead, it provides a 60-day free trial. You will receive a $200 credit (for 60 days) when you create a new account on DigitalOcean. All you need is only a credit card for this.

And the Winner is: DreamHost

In comparing their features, DreamHost emerges as the winner with premium quality features meant for beginners and small business owners, as DigitalOcean is strictly for developers.

2. Website performance (Uptime & Speed): DreamHost vs DigitalOcean

If you ask for the most important category to choose when finding a good host, it is surely the speed and uptime provided by that host.

DigitalOcean Uptime & Speed

Because of its several data centers worldwide, DigitalOcean is the fastest and most reliable option to choose. It determines the loading speed of your website for the visitors who visit your site. Currently, DigitalOcean has 14 data centers.

DigitalOcean offers a 99.99% uptime guarantee, and its well-maintained cloud infrastructure ensures better speed and uptime. It also uses SSD storage for a faster rate.

DreamHost Uptime & Speed

DreamHost offers a 100% uptime guarantee to its users. And it has data centers in the USA only. With its VPS and Dedicated server hosting, you can ensure fast speed and less downtime.

And the winner is DigitalOcean.

Though highly suitable for techies, regular web host users seek to host sites with DigitalOcean because of its superior quality performance and fast servers. So it is the winner when speed and uptime are concerned.

3. Prices & Plans: DreamHost vs DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean offers only cloud hosting, and DreamHost provides several hostings. Let’s check their pricing and plans in our comparison.

DreamHost Pricing and plans

DreamHost proposes Shared, VPS, Managed WordPress, Dedicated, and Cloud Hosting.

Shared Hosting

Shared Hosting is an affordable option for all. The Shared Plan starts at $2.59/mo for the Starter package and $3.95/mo for the unlimited package. You will get –

• One website hosting is on the starter plan, and unlimited website hosting is on its Shared unlimited plan.

• The Shared plans offer a free domain name for the first year, unlimited traffic, pre-installed WordPress, WP website builder, free SSL, and free SSD storage.

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting is perfect for those with big businesses who want full control of their site. It has basic (at $10.00/mo), business (at $20.00/mo), professional (at $40.00/mo), and enterprise plan (at $80.00/mo). Some of its features are –

1GB RAM and 30GB SSD for the Basic plan,

2GB RAM, 60GB SSD for the business plan,

4GB RAM, 120GB SSD for the professional program,

and 8GB RAM and 240GB SSD for the enterprise plan.

Dedicated Server Hosting

It offers Standard ($149.00/mo) and Enhanced ($279.00/mo) plans. Its features are –

4-Core 8-Thread, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD with Standard plan,

and 2-Core 24-Thread, 16 GB RAM, 2 TB HDD with Enhanced program.

Both plans offer RAID 1 storage, Root Access, a Local MySQL Database Server, and Ubuntu.

Managed WordPress Hosting

It has DreamPress ($16.95/mo), DreamPress Plus ($24.95/mo), and DreamPress Pro ($71.95/mo) plans. And their features are –

• 30-120GB SSD storage based on the plan.

• Unlimited bandwidth and Email accounts, 1-Click Staging, pre-installed SSL certificate, and on-demand + daily backups.

DreamHost also offers cloud hosting as DreamObjects and DreamCompute hostings.

DigitalOcean Pricing & Plans

DigitalOcean presents several cloud website hosting solutions. It has two primary services called Droplets and Kubernetes. The Droplets, starting at $4/month, are flexible, scalable virtual machines. Another option is Kubernetes at $12/month.

Droplets – starting at just $4/mo- can be deployed in seconds, scalable on demand, and run any workload from mission-critical apps to any low-traffic site.

Kubernetes – starting at $12/mo, it comes in Basic, CPU-optimized node ($42/mo), General Purpose node ($63/mo), Memory-optimized node ($84/mo), and Storage-optimized node ($163/month per node).

Kubernetes are compatible with standard Kubernetes toolchains and integrate natively with DigitalOcean’s load balancers and block storage volumes. It manages high workloads and offers a free control panel in which you can order a Kube-API server, Kube-controller – manager, etc., and low-priced bandwidth.

You can add a load balancer to its cluster at $12/month.

And the winner is:

DreamHost is the winner in price as it offers cheaper plans than DigitalOcean. DigitalOcean doesn’t offer standard hosting packages, which most users use, and they don’t provide free features with their droplets.

4. Customer Support: DreamHost vs DigitalOcean

The next category in our comparison is the customer support offered by these two service providers. Most customers seek fast and reliable customer support, as they often need help to host a website.

DreamHost Customer Support

DreamHost offers a variety of customer support options like live chat, phone calls, Emails, and tickets. You can only reach the live chat support during office hours, 8 AM – 4 PM Pacific Time, on Mondays – Fridays. You can use the ticket system or the knowledge base available on their site for help. For phone call support, they will charge you some extra fees. So we recommend you go for live chat and tickets.

DigitalOcean Customer Support

Unfortunately, DigitalOcean doesn’t offer live chat, phone, or Email support. They only have ticket support. But there is a huge knowledge base article to guide you on their site, nearly 6000+ articles, and we think they are more than enough to provide you with details.

And the winner is DreamHost.

For better customer support, you can choose DreamHost if you constantly need help. DigitalOcean is mainly for those with high coding knowledge.

5. Ease of use: DreamHost vs DigitalOcean

Another important thing in our comparison, especially for beginners, is the ease of use of any host.

Since DigitalOcean offers its services mostly to developers, it doesn’t hold any place in terms of ease of use. They are more bound towards functionality rather than a user-friendly interface. You can install and use cPanel in DigitalOcean, but you must purchase a valid license.

On the other hand, DreamHost is more user-friendly and focused on beginners. The customized control panel is easy to use after a few uses.

And the winner is:

DreamHost! There is nothing hidden here, as we can see that DreamHost is more suitable for beginners than DigitalOcean.

6. Security – Which Platform is more secure: DreamHost or DigitalOcean

Regarding security, both DreamHost and DigitlaOcean are secure Platforms to use. Still, where DreamHost will provide you with the basic security features for free, DigitalOcean will not do that. Moreover, you will have to install the security features like a firewall and SSH key in DigitalOcean. It also doesn’t offer free daily backups.

And the winner is:

By offering more free security features than DigitalOcean, DreamHost is the winner.

7. Server location: DreamHost vs DigitalOcean

In the final round of our comparison, we will see the server locations of DreamHost and DigitalOcean, as we know that server location can affect the speed of your website for you and your website visitors.

DreamHost Server Location

DreamHost has very few server locations in the US only. Its DreamCompute servers are in Ashburn and Virginia, and its DreamObject servers are in Irvine and California.

DigitalOcean Server Location

It currently has 14 servers located in different places. Those are in New York City, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Singapore, London, Frankfurt, Toronto, and Bangalore.

And the winner is:

In this round, DigitalOcean wins with more data centers.

DreamHost vs DigitalOcean: Final recommendations

DreamHost is our final winner in this comparison. DreamHost and DigitalOcean are good service providers, but they offer different services. DigitalOcean mainly focuses on cloud hosting.

Before choosing a host, you must know your prerequisites. If you are a beginner, want an easy-to-use server, good customer support to help you frequently, and some free security features added to your plan, then you can go for DreamHost. With it, you will not have to worry about managing your servers.

If you want total control over the server, have good experience in coding, and enjoy fast servers, if the cost doesn’t matter, then you should try DigitalOcean. With it, you will be able to customize your website fully.