To the Happy DreamHost Balloons, Flowers, and Teddy Bear Team:
AN Hosting offers an incredible 500 gigs of disk space and 5,000 gigs of bandwidth! You’d have to pay 10 years in advance to get the same deal from DreamHost! Use the code UPSTARTBLOGGER for 3 free months! But hurry— offer expires at midnight on Halloween!
I guess one of you guys must have read my post, Why DreamHost Sucks. I was halfway through a movie last night when the doorbell rang. People don’t usually ring the bell unannounced at about 7:30 in the evening in my neighborhood, so I when I opened the door, I assumed the guy must be selling something.
“Yeeees,” I said tentatively.
“I’ve got some balloons for you,” the guy said, “and a few more things in the truck.”
“Uh, what is this about?”
He asked me if he had the right address. He did.
“Well, these are for you.”
“What name are you looking for?”
“Robert Ellis.”
“…”
He handed the balloons to me and I took them reluctantly. One of them read, “Thinking of You.”
“Who are these from?”
“There’s a card with the flowers.”
Flowers?
My wife is out of town. I couldn’t think of any reason why she would send me balloons. And flowers. Am I in trouble? I know it’s not my anniversary (that was in July). It’s not my birthday (that’s in October). If not my wife, then which of my many secret admirers could this be from?
The guy came back with a teddy bear and a vase of flowers. I was still so befuddled, I didn’t even give the guy a tip.
The first thing I did was put the vase down and read the note:
Well, pinch me. This is a dream. You guys sure are generous. I leave DreamHost and you send me balloons, flowers and a Teddy Bear. What’s up with that?
When my wife called and I told her the story, she said, “People send either balloons, flowers, or teddy bears. If you get all three, someone’s feeling guilty.” Is that it? Are you feeling guilty?
I have to give you credit. I like your spirit. And I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that your hearts are in the right place and that you really are trying, as you write on your site, to “deal with every client as a human being and as a friend.”
But, guys! Listen! Next time save yourself some money. Any business can screw up; it’s what you do to make things right that counts. You could have given me a call when I asked about closing my account (more than anything else, that little note from Ralph after you took down my site before I’d asked you to—”Unfortunately your account does not come with phone support so I will not be giving you a call about this issue”—ticked me off). You could have offered me three months—or even a year—of free web hosting (balloons, a teddy bear and flowers can’t have been cheap!). You could have moved me to a different server that you knew was solid. After a few months without problems, I would have written with enthusiasm about my positive cutsomer experience.
Believe me, I didn’t want to change web hosts. It’s a major hassle moving things over and I was out of commission for a couple of days. But I don’t think I’ll be coming back, even if Hosting ZOOM doesn’t work out [they didn't; I'm now with AN Hosting]. They’re cheaper, I can call them on the phone and talk to somebody if I have a problem, and they have redundant data centers, so I shouldn’t have to worry about a power outage or an earthquake taking down my web host (bad bit of luck, that, and sympathies to you and everyone whose site was down).
Oh, well, bygones, water under the bridge, yadda yadda yadda. In spite of my DreamHost Sucks post, I’m not holding on to any hard feelings (but the post stays; it’s factual and, after all, I write reviews).
Finding a great web host is tougher than getting lucky in love. But this is the first time someone sent me flowers (and balloons and a teddy bear) when we broke up. Thanks!
Robert
Be sure to read How to Find a Web Host That Doesn’t Suck.
Note: If you still want to try DreamHost—and some people swear by them (and some people swear at them)—click here. Use the code FUTUROSITY and you’ll even get a $50 discount! But don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Upstart Blogger is hosted by AN Hosting. Host 20 domains, with 250 GB disk space, 2.5 TB transfer, a free domain for life, Ruby on Rails support, 24/7 phone/email support, 99.9% uptime guarantee, and a 30 day money back guarantee—all for only $6.95 a month! Wow!
[...] And there is funny things: Due to overstep the fucking CPU Minutes Limitation, this gua’s account was closed by dreamhost. Why dreamhost Sucks. But after a few weeks, I Leave dreamhost, dreamhost Leaves Me… (Almost) Speechless…… [...]
[...] Sep 16: There’s more to this story. After you read this post, be sure to read I Leave DreamHost, DreamHost Leaves Me… (Almost) Speechless. Also, see How to Find a Web Host That Doesn’t [...]
[...] credited my account for last month without any problems and they’ve always been responsive. DreamHost can keep their stinkin’ teddy bear! AN Hosting actually tries to do something about a problem. This was also in their latest [...]
I’m actually in the process of switching FROM Zoom TO Dream. I was with Reseller Zoom (Hosting Zoom’s reseller account) for over a year and didn’t have any problems, but I simply can’t stand Cpanel/WHM.
I, too fell for all the glowing reviews of DH and was very impressed with their service as I moved some basic sites over.
Now that I’ve tried to move a large PHP web app over I’m having second thoughts. It’s slow and buggy and I’m seriously reconsidering the whole move.
Hosting is a pain. For all the promises providers make, there are an equal amount of things they do to hurt you. It simply sucks.
I’m with ResellerZoom now and they are absolutely horrible. They didn’t tell me about their CPU restriction when signing up but it didn’t stop them from screwing my site up for all my visitors with Internal Server Errors…
I’m looking for another host and DreamHost was a good option. I’ll try them for a while before I decide.
As for ResellerZoom, I strongly suggest all of you to stay away from them. These days, bandwidth don’t really matter. It’s the CPU restriction (which they dont tell you about) that matters.
I can’t wait to find a host with well experienced System Administrators…
I haven’t had any problems with Hosting ZOOM. I’ve consulted with their support and they’ve always been fine. But good luck with DreamHost.
IMHO, moving to DreamHost is a big mistake. I haven’t had any problems with Hosting ZOOM and neither have you, according to your comment. Personally, I like Cpanel better than DreamHost’s control panel, but I don’t use the control panel much now that I’ve set things up the way I like them. The biggest problem I had with DreamHost was with PHP, actually MySQL, for my blog. The server was often overloaded or some admin error brought it down. Good luck!
DreamHost is rubbish techsupp is taking 36hrs to get back to me, reseller control panel is non-existant, i cannot believe they have 200,000 customers ! Make sure your new host uses PLESK !
That is a really nice story. I am currently on dreamhost and have yet to have any problems that I could not work out myself. At the same time, 8 nines of uptime is not totally important to me, but I know of very few host that will offer those kinds of promises to people on shared servers.
The biggest selling point for me is the amount of technical knowledge that the dreamhost staff seem to have, and the fact that they embrace some really cool technologies (svn, RoR, much more…)
Not sure what you mean by “8 nines of uptime,” but I’m glad you’re having a good experience.
Dreamhost is a group of jackasses. There is not one good thing about dreamhost. All the space and all the bandwidth does no good if you develope a dynamic site at dreamhost. They give you no cpu usage. Matter of fact i have read more post that dreamhost usually disables accounts because of wordpress that runs on the dreamhost server, but yet wordpress is a once click install with dreamhost.
Terri at dreamhost can suck on a toilet bowl brush.
Dreamhost rocks, I use them to host pics
I’ve done a ton of shared hosting as well as managing dedicated servers over the last 10 years. I just want to comment that any particular anecdote is not a good way to judge a host. The fact is that with shared hosting you are at the mercy of other people on the host. You might blame Dreamhost for this or that problem even though its some boneheaded customer bringing the database down or whatever.
Things like Dreamhost’s CPU limits tend to piss people off who get burned by it, but they don’t realize those limits are protecting them from abuse by dozens of other users on their same machine. Site5 for instance, doesn’t limit CPU usage, and as a result, one server I’m on is constantly having load issues, and tech support can do nothing about it. Just because you don’t understand why WordPress and a bunch of shitty plugins takes too much CPU doesn’t mean you should be allowed to overload the server for everyone else.
Now I agree that Dreamhost has some support issues from time to time, but I really believe that could happen anywhere. At work we use Hostopia which recently got Netcraft’s highest availability rating. This made me laugh out loud because we’ve been dealing overloaded database issues with them for months and they never get resolved. They run a stripped down Linux installation where even basic utilities are completely unavailable. No top, no uptime, not even ssh or scp. Shell sessions are hard-booted after one hour, so you could be in the middle of tarring an archive or some installation and your process is just kill -9′ed. You’d think with all the restrictions they could keep their servers running well, but they can’t. When there’s problems you can call them on the phone, but it ain’t worth shit if they can’t fix your problem.
I’ve been with Dreamhost 5 years and over that time they’ve been more reliable and made better improvements than any other shared host I’ve tried. If you want to cut the variables out of the equation you need to go dedicated. I have a Rackspace server, and so far I gotta say their support is second to none.
Gabe, I agree with you: anecdotes don’t mean very much. If you do a search on any host you’ll find kudos and horror stories. Unfortunately, as you also point out, things like Netcraft ratings don’t mean very much either. You have to make a decision based on something.
You’re also right that it’s possible to have vastly different experiences with the same hosting company depending on what server you’re on. The real issue is how a company responds when you have problems.
I still have that Teddy Bear (it’s a cat toy now), but I still shake my head every time I think about my experience with DreamHost. They couldn’t do me the courtesy of giving me a call when I had some problems, but I got flowers a couple days after I flamed them publicly.
There’s a happy ending for everyone, though. I’ve since sent numerous people their way (see below) and made a little pocket change from it. It more than pays for my hosting at AN Hosting, where I’ve been much happier.
considering a move from Midphase to dreamhost. but have 4 months time. so i can wait to see more experiences.
When our vet killed our rabbit he sent flowers to our house. Flowers and teddy bears are for when you mess up, big time.
Dreamhost is terrible. They are very nice people that work there (and I always had quick customer service responses) but I’d rather have nasty people and a site that works. We’ve been having problems on and off for about three months now. Every time there’s a problem they take care of it— temporarily (usually a server reboot. Though once they moved our site to a new server, that worked for about 2 weeks). Our site is down at least once a week. we have a very very simple site that we rarely make changes to, no bells and whistles. Even if you are just hosting a 5 page informational site, think again.
This blog seems more and more as an ad rather than something personal
Sayers, I’m sorry you feel that way. Everything I write is based on my personal experiences, including my hosting recommendations.
Good to see I made the right choice for me by not choosing DreamHost.
I read somewhere on you site that you moved from GoDaddy to DreamHost. I’m currently with GoDaddy, and have no major problems, but im not falling on love with them either.
Why did you leave GoDaddy???
Brian, I left GoDaddy for two reasons: 1) I didn’t like their control panel (setting things up was unnecessarily complicated; this may have changed since I was with them), and 2) I had a lot of problems with my site and with email. It turned out that most of the problems I was having were no fault of theirs (problems with the code on my site at the time), but I was still glad to move. At least, until DreamHost went bad.
I’m with AN Hosting now, and I’ve been very satisfied.
Fair enough..
their control panel is certainly unique. I’ve only been there about 6 months so I’m not sure if they’ve changed it since you’ve been there. I’ve found setting up most things fairly easy, once you know what to look.
Thanks for your fast reply!
Dreamhost supports extreme racism by not enforcing common TOS policies against it and hosts a number of sites preaching it.
The About Us page is a joke to anyone who is not white. http://www.dreamhost.com/aboutus.html
“providing solid web hosting”
“Believe us, there’s plenty of those in the hosting industry already and you probably don’t want to get mixed up with them.”
“We’re looking forward to welcoming you to our family!”
Why would I host with them? So my site about helping others, reducing pollution for future generations and websites dedicated towards peaceful hospice solutions for the elderly can be hosted on the same server with racists preaching hate about blacks, jews, arab and people of mexican heritage?
http://wiki.dreamhost.com/DREAMHOST_ANNOUNCES_GoDreamDaddyHost
[URL deleted by UB: I'm not going to give them a link.]
[URL deleted by UB: I'm not going to give them a link.]
Except as set forth below, Go Daddy may also cancel Your use of the Services, after thirty (30) days, if You are using the Services, as determined by Go Daddy in its sole discretion, in association with spam or morally objectionable activities. Morally objectionable activities will include, but not be limited to: activities designed to defame, embarrass, harm, abuse, threaten, slander or harass third parties; activities prohibited by the laws of the United States and/or foreign territories in which You conduct business; activities designed to encourage unlawful behavior by others, such as hate crimes, terrorism and child pornography; activities that are tortuous, vulgar, obscene, invasive of the privacy of a third party, racially, ethnically, or otherwise objectionable;
money4mayhem, I’ve deleted your link to the racist site. I’m not interested in supporting that and it doesn’t belong on my blog.
I don’t support racism, but I’m not sure what the problem is with DH’s About page. And I think it’s probably unfair to expect them to police the content of all their sites, though if you take the time to complain to them, I’d be disappointed if they didn’t respond.
Robert,
Thank you for your response. I googled and found your experience with Dreamhost and wanted to comment.
I did make a request by email as follows:
================================
Dreamhost and SBC Global Support,
I ask that you urgently review this customer’s website and take action.
I would appreciate an update response by Monday 4/9/2007 regarding this website. I find websites like this discouraging because there is already so much hate in american homes there is no need to bring it to the internet which should be a place of education and discovery. I am black and Jewish. I know this hate firsthand.
Lastly, I ask that Dreamhost to consider amending it’s TOS to include racial bigotry and other statements of hate towards collective “groups” of people. It is my personal belief that groups that come together for something are stronger than ones established against something. It feels good to read TOS’s that specifically says it will not tolerate hate statements.
================================
Their response was:
Apr 5, 2007 2:30 PM
Hello,
> Dreamhost and SBC Global Support,
>
> I ask that you urgently review this customer’s website and take action.
>
> I would like a response by Monday regarding this website. I find websites
Thank you for writing. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that as a web hosting
service provider we do not censor or otherwise assert editorial control
over the content of the sites that we host – even those that we may (as
is the case here) find personally abhorrent.
Jeff,
=======================
and:
=======================
Apr 8, 2007 2:53 PM
Thank you for writing. DreamHost has a policy of not censoring or otherwise exerting editorial control over the content that our customers or their associates/visitors may place online, unless that content is explicitly illegal. Likewise, we do not condone or endorse anything our customers may place online. We host many websites that each of us individually may personally degree with, or perhaps even find completely reprehensible, but as a company we recognize each individual’s right to free speech as guaranteed by the 1st amendment to the United States constitution.
As mentioned before, we will certainly remove any content from our servers that violates US law. This includes child pornography, copyrighted material (explicit violations such as DVD/CD rips as well as material whose copyright status is made clear after a formal DMCA complaint), and anything ordered to be taken offline by a court of law whose jurisdiction applies to DreamHost’s location.
- Karl F., Abuse Coordinator
========================
I think it is unacceptable to not include racial bigotry, which usually leads to real or imagined threats in TOS (Terms of Service).
Robert,
In your reply, you said, “I’m not sure what the problem is with DH’s About page.”
I mention their About Us page because one statement especially strikes me, “We’re looking forward to welcoming you to our family!â€?
The basis of humanity to many is that we group together. Doing this, we are able to better survive, reproduce, evolve and protect each other. Many believe the family is that primary group.
It looks strange that someone would ask you to join their “family” but not offer that basic human protection. Protection against harm. Support for your safety. An enviroment that encourages your growth.
Since this is the US and the mighty dollar has a voice, I ask you to consider if you want your website and files with a company that openly does not discourage racism. I don’t know if Dreamhost has any people of color working for them. If I worked for a company and found out they had a policy to not have a policy about racial hate statements, I’d have an ethical conflict of the soul. That’s me.
money4mayhem, I have to say it’s disappointing that DreamHost doesn’t have a policy of banning sites that promote hate, especially since they do have a history of raising money for worthy causes, like Katrina and Darfur. AN Hosting’s TOS specifically ban hate speech.
But I wouldn’t read too much into the statement on their About page welcoming people to their family. It may be poor sales copy, but I don’t find the statement prejudicial. I know a lot of dysfunctional families, and we know who gets to be the parents here with all of the control.
Thank You
Been with DH since 2001.. They are the worst.. I’ve have finally had it. The only reason I didn’t leave sooner was the hassle. Well it’s MORE of a hassle to leave my 20+ sites on their half-baked servers. Hey but they are EMPLOYEE OWNED ya know! Maybe the reason they are so bad is that the employees are not really very good at what they do…idiots…Cheap? yep. Worst host? Yep!
a “consultant” who isn’t familiar with the term “x-number-of nines”? seriously?
run away! run away!
“Terri at dreamhost can suck on a toilet bowl brush.”
I second that. Get some traffic on a dynamic site (using wordpress) and Dreamhost will simply terminate without explanation.
I have crashed their so-called “private server” by simply running wordpress — and putting a load on it…that was my first clue they were shared only.
DH is great if you have a static site and nothing else. Everyone above is correct — they charge and arm-and-a-leg for CPU.
I’m posting this because after 7 years of being client, they simply said “BlackHat SEO” was the cause for termination…wtf not even an explanation, despite my many attempts.