Dreamhost Rocks: Here's 55 Reasons Why...

(Or: "Awesome Hosting with 50% off"...)

‘WEB HOSTING’. The mere mention sends us off to never-never land. And finding the perfect host used to sit next to “win Nobel Prize” down the bottom of our ‘To Do (Someday)’ list.

Bad idea… let us explain why.

Your Hosting Matters

Imagine spending days – or even decades – perfecting your website, only to find your web host lets you down when your users visit. Reliable web hosting is not an optional extra.

A Good Host Is Hard to Find

Hundreds of web hosts offer thousands of hosting plans – each with dozens of optional extras. Finding the right hosting can feel like ‘mission impossible’.

That’s if you are lucky. A bad decision could devastate your site traffic. What would you lose if your site was down for a day? Or even a whole week? You’ll hear horror stories like these (and far worse) about many low-cost web hosts.

We’ve a Simple Solution

(Here’s a clue: it starts with Dream’ and ends with ‘Host’.)

Join DreamHost now…

Perhaps, like us, you prefer to spend your precious time making websites than worrying about hosting (or, um, reading sales pitches).

We understand, so here’s the elevator pitch. DreamHost is:

The Perfect Webhosting Plan

Join DreamHost now…

55 Reasons Why DreamHost Rocks

Forget other web hosts with too-good-to-be-true introductory offers. Free software! Free domain transfers! We’ll send your mother-in-law flowers!

Enough. For us, the big difference with DreamHost is the sheer number of features DreamHost users get gratis. Ask other hosts to match this and you’ll likely get an awkward silence.

So take a deep breath. Here’s 55 reasons why DreamHost rocks.

1. Wowzer that’s cheap. Except ‘cheap’ might imply poor-quality, so let’s go with the less-catchy-more-precise “Quality hosting from $5.95/month”
2. More bandwidth. A cool 5 terabytes/month, minimum. Yes, terabytes.
3. More disk space. 500 GB, minimum – 6.25x the size of the latest fancy pants iPod.
4. Full PHP support. PHP5, or PHP4 for the old-school.
5. Unlimited MySQL databases. Host all your Advanced Dungeons & Dragons league tables in one place. Or database-driven sites. Your choice.
6. Full CGI access. Perl and Python scripts run free, as nature intended.
7. Unlimited sites. Host all your *cough* specialist sites in one place.
8. Unlimited domain/sub-domain hosting. Gather round, gang – everyone’s invited!
9. Free domain name. Because freebie gimmicks sometimes work.
10. One-click installs. 100% automatic setup for WordPress, Joomla, PHPbb, MediaWiki, Zen Cart, Gallery, activeCollab, WebCalendar & Advanced Poll.
11. Snapshot backups. We love this: automated hourly, daily & weekly quick ‘n’ dirty backups for all your sites.
12. Htaccess support. Handy for auto-rewriting clean URLs in WordPress etc.
13. Free private WHOIS hosting. Go Daddy charge $4.99 per year per domain for this. Go figure.
14. Ruby On Rails support. All the Web 2.0 cool kids are using it, you know.
15. Unlimited email aliases. Setup 100s of emails for your so-called ‘friends’.
16. Full Unix shell. Perfect for a Tron-style geek off or, um, using Linux.
17. POP3 / SMTP email. Works with everything from Outlook to Gmail.
18. IMAP access. Server-hosted email, if that rocks your world.
19. SpamAssassin filtering. One click turns you into a spam-fighting ninja*.
    *Please check your medical insurance covers spam ninja activities first.
20. AWStats web analytics. Rough ‘n’ ready web stats ready to roll.
21. YouTube-style media player. Easily embed video and audio on sites.
22. Server-Side Includes (SSI) aka ‘Poor Man’s PHP’.
23. DreamHost Blog/Newsletters. Fact: Both are far funnier than this site.
24. Custom DNS. Remember: with great power comes great responsibility.
25. Unlimited auto-responders. Reply to emails from pesky friends and family members with zero thought or effort.
26. Free domain forwarding. Can you believe some hosts charge for this stuff?
27. Squirrel Mail webmail. Like Hotmail never happened.
28. Custom errors. Create quick ‘n’ easy 404 pages without touching the dreaded .htaccess.
29. SSL Secure Server. Essential if you’re serious about e-commerce (you’ll need a unique IP, too).
30. Files Forever. Share or sell your digital downloads in seconds (NB. DreamHost takes 5% + $0.50 transaction fee on sales)
31. Unlimited discussion lists. Yadda, yadda, yadda to your heart’s content c/o industry standard GNU Mailman software.
32. Raw log files. A must for non-hosted web analytics, like WebTrends.
33. Image Magick. PHP image processing library ready to go.
34. Procmail. Complex email filtering for geeks who make Linux gags. You know who you are.
35. QuickTime streaming, using Apple’s Darwin engine.
36. RealAudio/RealVideo streaming. Use a non-proprietry format, already!
37. Guestbooks. We hate ‘em – but, hey, *somebody* must still use them.
38. FrontPage extensions. Our Frontpage amnesty starts today.
39. Enhanced security. Mod_security keeps h4x0rs from pwning your sites.
40. Anonymous FTP server. You’ll need a unique IP address.
41. Canned CGI scripts. Including all your favourites, like Formmail & friends.
42. Crontab access. Crons let you run automated tasks at a set time or date, like indexing your site or making hot coffee in the mornings (perhaps).
43. Unlimited Subversion repositories (SVN). Open-source version control.
44. CVS repositories. Industry standard version control for larger sites.
45. WebDAV support. *More* version control. WebDAV integrates with Adobe GoLive and Macromedia Dreamweaver.
46. Custom MX records. Host your email elsewhere, if you insist.
47. Jabber IM. Setup your own instant messenger server in seconds.
48. DreamHostStatus.com. 24/7 updates on uptime, downtime and, um, sidewaystime. Possibly.
49. Secure FTP. Don your tin foil hat and encrypt your FTP traffic to keep it from THE MAN.
50. DreamHost Site of the Month. Traffic for nothing & your clicks for free.
51. User suggestions. Vote on which new features you want.
52. Charidee. DreamHost match all your donations to their chosen charities.
53. We’re not convinced anyone will read all 55 reasons, so we’ve snuck this one in to bulk up the numbers. Keep it to yourself, eh?
54. 97 day money back guarantee. But we’ll crack up if you leave us after everything we’ve been through together.
55. Did we mention ‘cheap web hosting’? Oh. We did.

Join DreamHost now…

Save 50% With Our DreamHost Promo Code

Save $50/year with our exclusive DreamHost promo code. To get this damn-near unbeatable deal, just use the DreamHost discount code MAXDISCOUNTS when you signup at DreamHost.

Be sure to note in your diary when your 97 day money back guarantee is up. If you are not thrilled by DreamHost’s low cost, great service and features, ask for full refund.

Best wishes,

The DreamHost Rocks Team

PS. Still not sure DreamHost web hosting is right for you? TryDreamHost for 97 days risk free. You are entitled to a full refund if you are not entirely satisfied (NB. Be sure to pay by credit card to qualify – not PayPal).