Dreamhost - can't recommend it

Posted by: hybrid8

Dreamhost - can't recommend it - 16/08/2006 01:48

I have to take back any recommendation I've ever made for Dreamhost. Sorry.

I've been battling with email outages for the past two months and when you think everything is fine, there goes another 10-48 hours or intermittent access or complete inability to either check POP3 mail or use SMTP servers (sometimes just one and not the other).

Dreamhosts's prices are unfortunately too good to be true. If you don't mind outages like this, then they probably can't be beat. But I think I may just have to bite the bullet and look elsewhere soon.
Posted by: matthew_k

Re: Dreamhost - can't recommend it - 16/08/2006 06:25

I don't know, any company that explains their outages in such form as this blog post: http://blog.dreamhost.com/2006/08/01/anatomy-of-an-ongoing-disaster
gets some sort of pass from me. I'm not using them for any sort of mission critical hosting at the moment, but their candor is certainly disarming.

Matthew
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Dreamhost - can't recommend it - 16/08/2006 12:14

Personally, I really like the hosting I'm getting with them. Granted, my company doesn't have a website with them like yours does (is that where yours is?), but even for my needs I've had a good experience with them so far. I have about 7 domains hosted with them.

I have a feeling you'd have to jump to a far higher price level to get 99.9999% uptime. Frankly, I'll never have that need. 95% is good enough for me

Quote:
I'm not using them for any sort of mission critical hosting at the moment, but their candor is certainly disarming.

Wow! That certainly is something... and how about those newsletters? The people who run that company must be some interesting personalities.
Posted by: andy

Re: Dreamhost - can't recommend it - 16/08/2006 12:30

Quote:

I have a feeling you'd have to jump to a far higher price level to get 99.9999% uptime. Frankly, I'll never have that need. 95% is good enough for me



You realise that 95% would mean more than 18 days down-time a year ?
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Dreamhost - can't recommend it - 16/08/2006 13:09

Sorry, my brain is not worring about math this morning (bad day at the office already).

Basic message: I like Dreamhost.
Posted by: ithoughti

Re: Dreamhost - can't recommend it - 17/08/2006 12:35

for hosting, I'm once again putting in my endorsement for www.1and1.com

I love them.
Posted by: Roger

Re: Dreamhost - can't recommend it - 17/08/2006 12:40

Quote:
for hosting, I'm once again putting in my endorsement for www.1and1.com


I'm currently trying out site5.com, based on a recommendation in the drupal forums. It's my first hosting company, so I've got nothing to compare it with, but I've got no complaints so far (it's early days).
Posted by: Roger

Re: Dreamhost - can't recommend it - 20/08/2006 10:42

Quote:
I'm currently trying out site5.com, based on a recommendation in the drupal forums.


OK. I do have some complaints. Nothing spectacular, but it's just not a good fit for what I want to do with it.

Basically, my website's currently hosted on my box at home and, in order to move it somewhere else, I'm looking for the following features:

  • qmail-based hosting (because the wife and I have been using hyphenated extension addresses for quite a while now).
  • IMAP. Definitely with SSL.
  • Proper SMTP AUTH, for relaying. Preferably with TLS support.
  • ezmlm-based mailing lists, although this isn't so important. Mailman would probably be fine.
  • Support for drupal (which basically implies mod_php)
  • I'm not fussed about an unlimited count of MySQL databases. I want the ones I am using to be larger than 100Mb.
  • More disk space than most hosts give you (I want to use Gallery2, and I'll need at least 10Gb for photo space).
  • ssh access, so I can use rsync or rdiff-backup.
  • Subversion over WebDAV would be nice, but I can live with svn+ssh.


Every host I've looked at falls down on at least one of these requirements.

So, any suggestions, or am I going to have to spring for full-on colo?
Posted by: Terminator

Re: Dreamhost - can't recommend it - 21/08/2006 21:00

You might want to look into a VPS. It costs more money than a standard hosting account, but you do have root access to do whatever you want with it.

I've been using these guys for a couple of years now, and am pretty happy with them.

http://www.servint.com

Edit: deleted a massive amount of useless, Microsoftian bottom-quoting -wfaulk
Posted by: SE_Sport_Driver

Re: Dreamhost - can't recommend it - 21/08/2006 23:52

I somehow still get their horrible newsletters... know what I'm talking about? Like some kid just rambling on and on..
Posted by: Roger

Re: Dreamhost - can't recommend it - 24/09/2006 13:57

Quote:
You might want to look into a VPS. It costs more money than a standard hosting account, but you do have root access to do whatever you want with it.


I've been looking into this as time permits for a short while now, and I found these guys: http://www.spry.com/webmin-vps/

Their Webmin VPS 200 or 300 package looks like being exactly what I want. It's got the right amount of disk space, and they support Debian (I prefer APT to RPM). And they've got reverse DNS, which some of the other VPS hosts don't do.

They do a cheaper version of that at http://www.vpslink.com/vps-hosting/, which is lacking some of the bells and whistles, but looks like it might do as well.

Does anyone have any experience with either of these packages/providers?