When we started our blogs on the new domain sabza.org, we never thought that we need to hire some fancy web host. We hosted it with a small web host with limited disk space and bandwidth. We thought that we will never be able to cross these limits. But after a six months period, we started noticing the downtime on our web host’s server. Sometimes these downtimes made our blogs inaccessible for hours.
We emailed our web hosting provider and were told that our blogs are using more than 60% of the server load and twice the allowed bandwidth limit. Our web host had no choice but to discontinue the service because it was not possible for him to maintain the uptime. We made backups of our data and started looking around for some decent, affordable but powerful web hosting solution.
We needed more bandwidth and diskspace, unlimited sub-domains, php, mysql, web ftp, email accounts, etc. Our needs were quite basic and there are so many web hosts out there offering a lot more than we needed. We didn’t know how to decide a solution. But we needed to make this decission quickly, so we checked the following options to find out a web host that is just right for us:
- Disk Space and Bandwidth - From previous experiences we learnt that we should never under estimate our capabilities. This time we had the possible growth in our mind.
- Price - At this time we were not able to spend much on hosting so we needed a solution that fits our budget without compromising on quality of services offered.
- Support Options - Speaking honestly, our previous web host provided us great email support and this time we wanted even more like online Wikis, forums, chat room or support by email and phone.
- Reviews and Ratings - When we found the above mentioned requirements fulfilled by a host we checked the web for customer reviews of their services. We found that most web hosts fail to fulfill the promises they make on their websites. We found their customers telling stories of their horrible experiences on blogs and forums.
Then we found Dream Host. The web was full of positive reviews. They had a blog, an extensive Wiki Documentation, user forum, email support, web panel and much more to offer. Specially they were offering 177 GB of disk space and 1.77 TB monthly bandwidth. They matched all our requirements:
- 177 GB Disk space and 1.77 TB Bandwidth
- Mysql Databases: unlimited
- Domains hosted: unlimited
- Subdomains hosted: unlimited
- 3000 Email Accounts
- FTP and easy to use Web2ftp
- 24 hour Email Support
- World Class Data center
- Hosting on Debian Gnu Linux
All this for just $7.95 per month and $190 for two years with one free domain registration.
We signed up for their services, unlocked our domain and initiated the transfer of our domain to Dream host severs by changing DNS information. When you are transfering a domain from one web host to another it usually takes sometime before the changes get propagated on the internet. Transfers may take up to two weeks. Since it was our first time doing this we were nervous but Dream Host support staff stayed in touch with us via email during this time and were notified when the transfer was complete. We had no trouble at all transfering our domain to Dream Host.
We are happy with Dream host. We loved the way they helped us set up our site from backup we had on our hard disk. They have the easiest web panel that gives us the freedom to do whatever we want. We can even create sub-domains and hand them to over to friends by managing users and giving them permissions without affecting other sub-domains. Creating email accounts and managing them is a lot more easier now. Our pages are loading faster and we don’t need to worry about disk space or bandiwdth when uploading pictures and files.
What we liked most is that Dream Host is not afraid of sharing status information with users. We haven’t witnessed any problem yet but it makes us feel good that we can check the services status whenever we want. We can also check the status of services from inside the web panel. Dream Host employees also run a blog and they are not shy about sharing disaster information with their userbase. Their email support responses are quick and the web panel keeps a history of support requests you made and answers you recieved for your own quick personal reference.
We also liked Dream Host’s one click installs. They have popular open source software available for one click installs from their web panel. We haven’t installed any of these software yet as we already had wordpress installed for our blogs, but we have plans to play around with Joomla and phpBB. Dream Host users can install:
- Wordpress - the most popular state of the art open source blogging tool.
- phpbb - open source web forum software
- Media Wiki
- Joomla - Content management system
- Gallery
- ZenCart - A shopping cart software for e-commerce websites.
- And some more software like guest books, counters, etc.
We the bloggers at Sabza strongly recommend Dream Host as an ideal shared web hosting solution provider. Have a look at their hosting comparison chart, its loaded with features and remember Dream Host offers a 90 days money back gurantee, if you don’t like it you can get your money back. Also please don’t forget to use the the special discount promo code SABZA when signing up at dream host. Using this promo code will give you discount between $10 and $20 and we will earn a few dollars for referring you.
