One of my favorite features as a happy DreamHost customer is their proprietary web panel.

When I was scouting for a new host to use as a secondary server ( I run 20ish websites, and don’t like to have all my eggs in one basket) I almost disregarded DreamHost because of my distaste of proprietary web panels. Ones that I used in the past were featured clumsy user interfaces that liked to crash and produce headaches.

A friend convinced me to give DreamHost’s web panel a try and allowed me to log into his account to check it out. After a few clicks I realized that the web panel was well designed and easy to navigate — I signed up for DreamHost a few minutes later.

But, if I didn’t have a good friend who could be foolish enough trust me enough to fiddle with his DreamHost account, I wouldn’t have been able to test it before signing up. Because up until now DreamHost didn’t offer potential customers a demo of their web panel.

Now they do:

DreamHost Web Panel Demo

It’s about time.