Deciding between DreamHost and AWS?
You've come to the right place, as we'll help you make sense of it all. But first, the most important thing:
DreamHost and AWS (Amazon Web Services) target two different markets.
DreamHost is for small businesses and personal website builders. AWS is meant for businesses and developers.
You'll need a lot of technical experience, or at least the ability to learn, to manage a host on AWS.
DreamHost is one of the most popular, and caters to a wide audience with plenty of information regarding their services. Amazon has become one of the biggest companies to explode online, so it’s no surprise to see them having their own web hosting services. If you’re thinking about using a hosting service, you should compare the two.
DreamHost vs AWS: Pricing
- Dreamhost
- Dreamhost has plans that start at $4.50 a month, which is great if you’re looking to save some money. They have other plans that can give you more features, and the prices for those plans range from $7.95-$149 a month. The vast array of options makes Dreamhost an excellent choice for just about anyone.
- AWS
- AWS keeps things simple by charging you for GB you use, so you can customize your own plan. AWS has plans starting from $73.84 a month, and you can change your plan whenever you need to upgrade. It is more expensive than WPE, but it is a good choice if you have high traffic volume.
- Winner
- Based on price alone, Dreamhost offers low prices to help you get started. Though you’re only going to get the bare minimum regarding features, this is an excellent price for those needing a hosting site to get started.
DreamHost vs AWS: Customer Support
- Dreamhost
- The customer support for Dreamhost offers plenty of ways to get in touch with a real person. They have tech veterans available to help you with any issues. If you have any issues with your website, you can reach a real person in minutes with their chat, ticketing system, and telephone support. If you’re always online, you will benefit greatly.
- AWS
- AWS offers plenty of customer support, and gives each customer a unique option to help them navigate through their website. AWS has a blog, contact us page, discussion forums, help, live support, online, support, and transfer. You can browse their selections to find what you need when it comes to finding a hosting site.
- Winner
- This is a difficult one to determine, only because both services offer plenty of customer support. Depending on your needs, you may find AWS offers more for their clients. Dreamhost also has plenty of customer support. In the end, you could appreciate both companies providing excellent customer support.
DreamHost vs AWS: Speed
- Dreamhost
- When it comes to speed, you want a fast hosting site, and Dreamhost provides you with the speed you need. Dreamhost has excellent speeds that will load up quickly, which is good for traffic coming to your website. It can load up on a computer in roughly 1.3 seconds, making it faster than other hosting sites. It’s excellent for anyone.
- AWS
- Amazingly, a cloud service can have its problems, and AWS has trouble with their speed, sometimes. However, they do have a burst feature, which automatically sets your CPU usage and cloud resources at 100 percent utilization for one minute at a time. Not perfect, but something to consider.
- Winner
- Speed is crucial to anyone looking to increase the amount of traffic they receive. Dreamhost has excellent speed that will prevent people from getting too impatient with the loading page. AWS has an interesting feature with their burst feature, which can help. You probably need a service that provides more consistency, so Dreamhost will be the better option for speed.
DreamHost vs AWS: Value
- Dreamhost
- Getting more for your money is always good, and Dreamhost offers a lot of good features for their money. Shared hosting and unlimited bandwidth can make your website run smoothly and quickly. Considering how inexpensive their plans are, you’re going to get a great value with Dreamhost.
- AWS
- AWS offers a lot of features, but their prices can be expensive. If you don’t pay the hefty price tag, you are going to get a lot more features. That’s great, but you should consider how the website works when you’re on it. AWS does offer some unique features you won’t find anywhere else, which isn’t bad.
- Winner
- Value is subjective, but the good news is that both companies feature plenty of value. If it comes down to a price: feature ratio, Dreamhost is going to be the winner in this category. If you want a lot of unique features for your website, AWS will be the better option. You should consider what is valuable to you so you can choose the right hosting site for you.
DreamHost vs AWS: Features
- Dreamhost
- The features for Dreamhost includes shared hosting, dedicated servers, virtual private servers, unlimited bandwidth, and secure sockets layer certificates. Dreamhost offers a lot of features that can help your website run perfectly.
- AWS
- If you’re all about features, AWS has it. They have the most features of any cloud business. This includes Snowball, Internet of Things, conventional cloud services, file system, block, and archival storage. Compute, storage, content delivery, databases, and networking are features that AWS focuses on, and they know how to deliver.
- Winner
- AWS is the king of features, making them the clear winner of this category. While Dreamhost does offer quite a few unique features, they don’t include some features, unless you’re willing to upgrade your account. AWS is the better option in this instance.
DreamHost vs AWS: Downtime/Uptime
- Dreamhost
- Uptime is crucial to any website, and you need a hosting that provides excellent uptime. Dreamhost guarantees an uptime of 99.9 percent, which is ideal for anyone looking for a hosting site. You don’t want to get stuck with a hosting site that can’t keep the pages loaded up when you need them to be.
- AWS
- Though AWS has an excellent uptime of 99.9974 percent, it is not perfect. There are many factors that can affect how long their uptime is, and AWS does a great job. While they are not perfect, considering the size of Amazon, and the servers it uses, it is still quite impressive.
- Winner
- Both hosting sites provide excellent uptime for their customers, and if you’re looking to get technical, AWS is the winner. Though there may not be that big of a difference, this can change over time. Both companies provide quality uptime, so both are not a bad option.
Who is it for?
- Marketers
- Marketers need reliability to deliver products to their customers, and Dreamhost is the perfect hosting service for marketers. They can rely on the uptime and features provided with Dreamhost. The lower costs of their plans make Dreamhost the perfect choice for marketers. While AWS does provide a lot of marketing tools in their plans, the prices may be too steep for some marketers. While neither one is a terrible choice, you will go further if you decide to use Dreamhost. It is the better option for marketers to break out without spending too much on a plan.
- Developers
- Developers can find a lot of uses for the pools AWS provides, making them the best for developers. You can create and customize your website the way you want with AWS. Though Dreamhost does have a lot of quality features for their customers, it just may not be enough for some developers. Having more options allow developers to do exactly what you want to do. If a developer doesn’t want to spend a ton of money for a plan with AWS, Dreamhost is an excellent alternative. You can create the website you want with the tools from Dreamhost, but it might not be enough.
- Small Business Owners
- Small business will benefit from using Dreamhost for their website because the costs are low, it is easy to use, and the customer support works well. Though the uptime isn’t as good as AWS, you will still have plenty of uptime for your site. When a small business owner is trying to build up their business, they need a hosting site that won’t cost them too much money to maintain. Even though Dreamhost does need some more focus, they do have enough customer support to help small business owners fix any issue that may arise.
- Ecommerce Companies
- Ecommerce companies have a lot to gain from using the right hosting service, and in this instance, AWS is the perfect hosting service for those larger companies. They provide all the tools they need to help an ecommerce company grow and reach more people. Since many ecommerce companies have the luxury of not worrying about money, the more expensive plans will work better for an ecommerce company. Though Dreamhost does provide excellent services, provides quality uptime, and works well, they may not have the features some ecommerce companies need. It’s something to consider, but AWS is suited for ecommerce companies.
Last Updated on April 30, 2018 by Joe