Recently updated on September 13th, 2024
Dreamhost vs Namecheap – Dreamhost become a better option
Today I am going to compare Dreamhost vs Namecheap, I used to Dreamhost from last year but I never use Namecheap as a web hosting provider so firstly i sign up for a web hosting on Namecheap and analyse the perfomance for both web host for a few months,
and after testing them I found Dreamhost vs Namecheap,
Dreamhost doing better in may factors like Perfomance, users and begginer friendly interface, Better Security features and they also have better Customer support but they are not affordable then Namecheap.
the only thing make Namecheap better than Dreamhost is there affordibility despite being affordable there is nothing which makes Namecheap better than Dreamhost.
lets start our Dreamhost vs Namecheap comparison
Dreamhost vs Namecheap: Quick overview
Dreamhost is one of the famous and old player in the web hosting market Dreamhost is famous for it outstanding perfomance and features better customer support, better security features and a user friendly interface, also they are officially recommended by wordpress.org among three web hostings, but Namecheap is only good at pricing in the comparison of Dreamhost otherwise they does not have any better things to offer to there customers.
Category | DreamHost | Namecheap |
---|
History | Known for web hosting | Known for domain registration |
Current Offering | Focus on hosting services | Provides both domain registration and hosting |
Pricing | Competitive pricing for various hosting plans | Affordable introductory rates |
Ease of Use | Custom control panel, easy setup | cPanel interface, beginner-friendly |
Performance | High uptime guarantee, optimized servers | Decent speed with SSD storage |
Security | Free SSL certificates, daily backups | Free SSL, bi-weekly backups, additional paid features |
Customer Support | 24/7 live chat, email support | 24/7 live chat, ticketing system |
Best For BUY | Users seeking reliable performance and support
| Budget-conscious users looking for affordable hosting
|
DreamHost vs Namecheap: Pricing
The only thing Namecheap is good at pricing they are most affordable web host, they are soo cheap as there starting plan starting at $1.58 per month and Dreamhost’s starting plan start at just $2.58 per month I know that Dreamhost is a bit expensive but don’t go for affordibilty alone look which web hist provide you better features.
Hosting Type | Namecheap | DreamHost |
---|
Shared Hosting | ✅ | ✅ |
WordPress Hosting | ✅ | ✅ |
Cloud Hosting | ❌ | ✅ |
VPS Hosting | ✅ | ✅ |
Reseller Hosting | ✅ | ❌ |
Dedicated Hosting | ✅ | ✅ |
Shared Hosting Comparison
Both web hosts cheapest plans include free features like a domain name, domain privacy protection, an SSL certificate, a website builder, and unmetered bandwidth.
Plan | Namecheap Stellar | DreamHost Starter |
---|
Price | $1.58/month | $2.59/month |
Websites | 3 | 1 |
Storage | 20GB SSD | 50GB |
Backups | Twice-a-week | Automatic daily |
Email Addresses | 30 | Not included (available in Unlimited) |
Additional Features | Supersonic CDN | |
Namacheap Plans
Namecheap’s Stellar Plan ($1.58/mo):
- Host up to 3 websites
- 20GB SSD storage
- Twice-a-week backups
- 30 email addresses
- Supersonic CDN
DreamHost’s Starter Plan ($2.59/mo):
- Host 1 website
- 50GB storage
- Automatic daily backups
From pricing comparison, Namecheap’s Stellar plan is clearly the cheaper option which allows there users hosting more websites. However, DreamHost offers larger storage and automatic daily backups.
Best Value Plans
Namecheap Shared Hosting Plans:
- Stellar: $1.58/mo
- Stellar Plus: $2.68/mo
- Unlimited storage and emails
- Host unlimited websites
- Automatic backups
Best Value:
- Stellar Plus for 2 years: $63.88 upfront, renews at $136.88 for the next 2 years.
Check Namecheap Pricing Now
DreamHost Shared Hosting Plans:
- Starter: $2.59/mo
- (My recommendation) Unlimited: $3.95/mo
- Unlimited email accounts, websites, and bandwidth
Best Value:
- Unlimited plan with a 3-year billing cycle: $142.20 upfront
Ease of use
Namecheap
- Interface: Namecheap provides a simple and clean interface primarily used for billing and accessing the cPanel. It’s neat but somewhat minimalistic since it focuses on basic functions.
- cPanel: Namecheap offers the standard version of cPanel with no customizations or colorful skins. Despite its plain appearance, it provides better functionality. You can manage domains, activate SSL, set configurations, create and manage emails, and install WordPress using the Softaculous one-click installer.
- Usability: The cPanel is strategically organized, making it easy to find and use all the features and tools. Everything is categorized clearly, and there’s a handy search bar to quickly locate specific tools. This makes managing your website tasks simple and efficient.
DreamHost
- Control Panel: DreamHost uses a custom control panel that combines all functionalities in one place. This means billing, website management, and support are all accessible from the same interface.
- Features: The control panel has a menu on the left where you can find tools for managing additional domains, installing content management systems like WordPress, accessing webmail, handling billing information, and contacting support. This all-in-one approach makes it highly accessible.
- Usability: While the panel may appear messy at first time, it is actually quite simple and well-organized. The intuitive design ensures that even complete beginners can navigate and manage their websites easily.
Comparison
- Namecheap: Separates billing and site management into two diffrent interfaces. The simplicity of the interface is balanced by the powerful capabilities of the standard cPanel, making it easy to perform a wide range of tasks.
- DreamHost: Offers the convenience of having all functions in a single, combined control panel. Despite initial appearances, the panel is user-friendly and well-organized, making it accessible even for those new to website management.
Both providers are easy to use in their own ways. Namecheap separates billing and site management into two interfaces, while DreamHost combines everything into one panel for convenience. DreamHost’s modern dashboard might be easier for new users.
Dreamhost is ideal for beginners because, with the Dreamhost dashboard, you can manage all the functions from a single tab, but you have to use separate tabs for different functions in Namecheap.
WINNER –
Performance
When we talk about performance, DreamHost clearly defeat Namecheap in this battle. DreamHost show near-flawless uptime, fast response times, and speedy loading times, and at the otherside Namecheap fall short in reliability despite decent page load speeds.
Uptime and Response Time
my team monitored the performance of both providers over a long periods: Namecheap was monitored around 2 weeks and DreamHostwas monitored for over 2 months.
- Namecheap: Over monitoring period, Namecheap face 16 outages totaling 31 minutes of downtime, and the result is a bit disappointing as they achieve the uptime of 99.82%. This is especially false the given Namecheap’s promise of a 100% uptime guarantee. The average response time for Namecheap was 1.05 seconds, which close the industry average of 600 milliseconds even it is 2x which it worst.
- DreamHost: DreamHost, monitored for over 2 months, had only 1 outage lasting 1 minute, achieving an excellent uptime of <99.99%. While DreamHost also promises a 100% uptime guarantee, 1 minute of downtime over two months is not soo much. DreamHost’s average server response time was outstanding as they manage to achieve 231 milliseconds, less than half the industry average.
Website Speed
Website loading speeds were tested using two key metrics:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This factor measures the time it takes for the largest element on a webpage to fully load. Google recommends this to be load under 2.5 seconds.
- Fully Loaded Time: This factor measures The total time for a webpage to fully load, ideally under 3 seconds for a good user experience.
Both providers were hosted in and tested from the US to ensure a fair comparison.
- Namecheap: Namecheap’s LCP was 2.3 seconds, just under the recommended 2.5 seconds but not good at all. The Fully Loaded Time was 2.7 seconds, again just under the 3-second mark. While these results are worth notice, they are close calls. Namecheap offers three data center locations to chhose from (US, UK, and the Netherlands), you can choose the one closest to your target audience to increase your site perfomance, but remember that the UK and Netherlands options cost an extra $1 per month to you.
- DreamHost: DreamHost performed excellent well, with an LCP of 1.4 seconds and a Fully Loaded Time of 1.6 seconds, really worth appreciated both will manage to load within the recommended limits. However, DreamHost’s data centers are located only in the US, making it best option for US-based audiences.
Conclusion
Overall, DreamHost wins the performance battle against Namecheap. DreamHost is more reliable with superior uptime and faster response times. While Namecheap offers more data center locations, DreamHost’s excellent speed and reliability make it the better choice for hosting performance.
WINNER –
Website security
Whenwe talk about security, both Namecheap and DreamHost take it seriously and offer a range of essential and advanced features.
Common Security Features:
- SSL Certificates: Both providers include free SSL certificates with their plans. Namecheap provides a free PositiveSSL certificate for the first year, while DreamHost offers Let’s Encrypt SSL for free.
- Domain Privacy Protection: Both Namecheap and DreamHost offer free domain privacy protection, which helps protect your personal information from being exposed in the publicly by accessing WHOIS database.
Namecheap’s Security Features:
- DDoS Protection: Namecheap includes DDoS protection via its Supersonic CDN, which helps mitigate attacks aimed at hurt your website.
- Firewalls: Namecheap uses ModSecurity for firewall protection. Additionally, a Web Application Firewall (WAF) is available if you upgrade to the paid Supersonic CDN plan, with cost you from $8.88 per month.
- Automatic Backups: Namecheap’s Stellar plan offers automatic backups twice a week, although this is not guaranteed. The Stellar Plus and Stellar Business plans include an Autobackup tool that can perform daily, weekly, or monthly backups.
DreamHost’s Security Features:
- Web Application Firewall (WAF): DreamHost includes a WAF to filter out malicious traffic and protect your website from various threats.
- Automatic Daily Backups: DreamHost provides automatic daily backups, ensuring that your data is regularly saved and can be restored if needed.
- DreamShield Malware Remover: For an additional $3 per month, DreamHost offers DreamShield, a malware removal service that scans for and removes malicious software.
Comparison and Conclusion:
Both providers offer robust security features, making it a close call. However, DreamHost gains a slight edge due to its inclusion of daily automated backups and built-in WAF at no extra cost, which are critical for ongoing data protection and threat mitigation.
- Namecheap: Strong security with free SSL, domain privacy, DDoS protection, and firewall options. The automatic backups feature is good but less consistent in the Stellar plan.
- DreamHost: Equally strong with free SSL, domain privacy, WAF, daily automatic backups, and an optional malware removal service. The daily backup feature provides peace of mind for consistent data security.
Overall, while both providers offer excellent security features, DreamHost’s daily backups and integrated WAF give it a slight advantage in terms of great security features.
–
Customer support
The Dreamhost and Namecheap offer several support channels, like live chat and a ticketing system. Additionally, DreamHost also provides support via phone, however, that costs extra. On top of that, the duo also has huge knowledge bases.
Namecheap’s main support channel is live chat, which I used multiple times. Generally speaking, the wait time is short and the agents are quick to help.
Additionally, Namecheap also has a pretty huge knowledge base. If you need help with things like SSL certificates or just comparing Namecheap vs DreamHost domains, its knowledgebase articles can be incredibly helpful for you.
As for DreamHost, live chat is only available between 5.30 a.m. and 9.30 p.m. PT, which is a bit of a disappointing. However, from my experience, the agents are quick to join the chat during these hours and are very helpful.
During offline hours, 24/7 ticket support is your best bet. I tried there ticketing system a few times and almost always had everything resolved within an hour or so. You can also contact DreamHost’s support via phone, but that costs $9.95 for a single call back.
Now if you prefer to do everything yourself, DreamHost has a massive knowledge base with masses of detailed articles on numerous topics.
Overall, DreamHost comes out slightly ahead. It has more support channels and although it fall short for a 24/7 chat option, but it’s efficient 24/7 ticketing system saves him here.
Dreamhost vs Namecheap – Alternatives
If you want more and detailed Dreamhost alternatives you can check out our list
A2 Hosting is renowned for its speed, boasting up to 20x faster web hosting with its turbo servers. It provides solid web hosting solutions at affordable prices, backed by 24/7 Guru Crew support.
Features List:
- SSD Hosting: Faster loading speeds with SSD storage.
- Free Site Migration: Effortless transfer of your existing website.
- 24/7/365 Customer Support: Always available support team.
- Anytime Money-Back Guarantee: Flexible refund policy.
- 99.9% Uptime: Reliable and consistent performance.
- 20x Faster Turbo Servers: Enhanced speed for your website.
Pros:
- SSD Storage: Provides faster loading speeds.
- cPanel Interface: Easy management of files and databases.
- Free Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificates: Enhanced security for your site.
- Free CloudFlare CDN: Improved speed and performance.
- HackScan: Continuous security monitoring.
- Optimized WordPress Environment: Better performance for WordPress sites.
Cons:
- Turbo Servers Limitation: The ultimate “Turbo Servers” feature is available only with advanced hosting plans.
Pricing Plans:
A2 Hosting offers four pricing plans:
- Startup Plan:
- Price: $2.99 per month
- Features:
- Host 1 website
- 100 GB SSD storage
- Free website migration
- Drive Plan:
- Price: $5.99 per month
- Features:
- Install unlimited websites
- Unlimited SSD storage
- Free website migration & backups
- 2x resources
- Turbo Boost Plan:
- Price: $6.99 per month
- Features:
- Unlimited NVMe storage
- Free website migration & backups
- 2x resources
- 20x faster turbo servers
- Handles up to 9x more traffic
- Turbo Max Plan:
- Price: $14.99 per month
- Features:
- Unlimited NVMe storage
- Free website migration & backups
- 5x resources
- 20x faster turbo servers
- Handles up to 9x more traffic
Why Choose A2 Hosting?
A2 Hosting is an excellent choice for those seeking fast and affordable hosting options. The use of the SwiftServer platform and turbo servers ensures your website loads up to 20x faster, significantly improving overall performance.
Additionally, A2 Hosting’s “anytime money-back guarantee” offers peace of mind. If you cancel within 30 days, you receive a full refund. Cancellations after 30 days get a prorated refund rounded up to the next full month of service. Refund requests after 120 days from purchase are issued via PayPal. Note that partial months of service and accounts terminated due to policy violations are not eligible for refunds.
In summary, A2 Hosting stands out for its speed, comprehensive features, and customer-friendly refund policy, making it a strong contender in the web hosting market.
BUY A2 HOSTING
Introduction to NameHero
NameHero is a affordable yet rich feature web hosting,they prioritize speed, security, and reliable customer support on first place. Namehero founded in 2015, NameHero has gained popularity for its innovative use of LiteSpeed servers and commitment to providing top-notch features at competitive prices.
Feature List
- LiteSpeed Web Server for enhanced website speed and performance.
- Free Cloudflare CDN integration for improved global loading times.
- Free SSL certificates included with all hosting plans.
- Automatic daily backups with free restoration options.
- Staging environment on all plans for testing website changes safely.
- Advanced security measures including real-time malware scanning and AI threat detection.
- NVMe storage on higher-tier plans for faster data access.
- 24/7 expert support via live chat, phone, and tickets.
- cPanel control panel for easy management of websites and hosting settings.
- 99.9% uptime guarantee to ensure your websites are always accessible.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Namehero has Affordable pricing plans, starting as low as $2.86 per month.
- Excellent performance with LiteSpeed servers and NVMe storage options.
- Free domain registration on Turbo and Business plans for two years or more.
- Comprehensive security features included at no extra cost.
- Flexible and scalable hosting solutions suitable for various business needs.
Cons:
- Limited data center locations compared to some competitors.
- Introductory pricing for the first term, with higher renewal rates.
All Plan Pricing Features
Starter Cloud:
- Price: $2.86/month
- Host 1 Website
- Free Domain Registration for 1 Year (Turbo and Business plans)
- Unlimited SSD Storage
- Unmetered Bandwidth
- Free SSL Certificate
- LiteSpeed Web Server
- Cloudflare CDN
- Automatic Daily Backups
- 99.9% Uptime Guarantee
- 24/7 Expert Support
- cPanel Control Panel
Plus Cloud:
- Price: $4.69/month
- Host Unlimited Websites
- Free Domain Registration for 1 Year (Turbo and Business plans)
- Unlimited SSD Storage
- Unmetered Bandwidth
- Free SSL Certificate
- LiteSpeed Web Server
- Cloudflare CDN
- Automatic Daily Backups
- 99.9% Uptime Guarantee
- 24/7 Expert Support
- cPanel Control Panel
- Staging Environment
Turbo Cloud:
- Price: $5.89/month
- Host Unlimited Websites
- Free Domain Registration for 2 Years
- Unlimited NVMe Storage
- Unmetered Bandwidth
- Free SSL Certificate
- LiteSpeed Web Server
- Cloudflare CDN
- Automatic Daily Backups
- 99.9% Uptime Guarantee
- 24/7 Expert Support
- cPanel Control Panel
- Staging Environment
- Priority Support
Why Choose NameHero?
NameHero can be an ideal choice for individuals bloggers and businesses looking for reliable, fast, and secure web hosting. Here’s how NameHero can help you:
- Performance: Utilizing LiteSpeed servers and NVMe storage ensures fast website loading times, crucial for user experience and SEO.
- Security: Advanced security features like free SSL certificates, automated malware scanning, and AI threat detection protect your website and data.
- Support: Access to 24/7 expert support ensures that any issues or questions are resolved promptly, maintaining your online presence without interruption.
- Scalability: With scalable hosting plans, from basic to enterprise-level needs, NameHero can grow with your business, accommodating increased traffic and resource requirements.
- Ease of Use: The intuitive cPanel control panel makes it easy to manage your websites, domains, and hosting settings, even for beginners.
if you Choosing NameHero means choosing a hosting provider committed to delivering high-performance solutions with top-notch security and support, all at competitive and affordable prices.