DreamHost and InMotion Hosting are both well-known and established companies that offer webhosting services. Both of these companies have been around practically forever in Internet Years (InMotion Hosting is 20 years old, and DreamHost is 20!) Since there are a lot of companies out there that offer webhosting, it can be difficult to know which company offers the products, pricing, and services that work best for you. If you’ve been thinking about going with either one of these companies, then you might not know which one is the better choice. Thankfully, we can help you out with that. The following information should help you get closer to making an informed decision, as we compare DreamHost and InMotion Hosting on a wide range of features to figure out which one offers the most value for the money.
Feature Comparison
In this section we are going to look at some of the main features that you can expect from any webhosting service, to see how these two companies stack up against each other.
- Price
One of the biggest things anyone looks for in a webhosting service is the bottom line — how much is it all going to cost? Well, both DreamHost and InMotion Hosting offer different levels of service, each with its own pricing. For DreamHost, a basic webhosting service starts at $10.95 per month. However, paying for a year up front can take a buck off of that price, and paying for three years at once brings the price down to $7.95 per month.
InMotion Hosting offers its basic webhosting package at $7.49 a month. Like DreamHost, paying for a year in advance gives you a discount, but InMotion Hosting’s is even better and you are also given the choice to pay for two years upfront, which brings the total down to $2.49 a month.
Both services also offer other products as well, including VPS (virtual private servers) and dedicated server hosting. Of course, these extra services come with a higher, but comparable, price tag.
- WordPress Hosting
For those looking for WordPress Hosting, both companies offer this service. DreamHost offers its basic package starting at $7.95 a month, while InMotion Hosting starts at $4.99 a month. Both companies have tiered levels of service, as well, depending on your needs. InMotion Hosting has four different levels of service — the basic package already mentioned, and three other levels of service, capping out at $17.99 for its “WP-4000S” level of WordPress Hosting. DreamHost offers what it calls “DreamPress” for $16.95 a month, but claims that this service is five times faster than its basic WordPress Hosting options, and is specifically built to handle all data and bandwidth issues.
- Features – Similarities
Of course, the difference of a buck or two a month is negligible in the long run; however, what truly matters is what you get for that money. In this respect, both services are very similar in that they both offer a wide range of services and features. Both DreamHost and InMotion Hosting, for example, offer a variety of features that can make help you build and run a successful, great-looking website. Both services offer pre-made web templates that you can choose and then customize to fit your particular needs. They both also offer you the ability to build a site from the ground up, and they both give you unlimited storage capacity for your online content. If you’re looking for a service to host your WordPress website, guess what? Both DreamHost and InMotion Hosting offer this as well. In short, both companies have a long list of tools and services to help meet your needs.
- Features – Differences
There are some differences, however. DreamHost offers multiple cloud-based solutions such as cloud servers and cloud storage. What’s more, you can actually build your site for free on DreamHost — only paying when you decide to actually publish. This means you can not only spend as much time as you need to get your site ready, but they won’t charge you while you’re seeing all that they have to offer.
Another feature that seems to give DreamHost an edge is its commitment to detecting and eliminating malware before it ever comes in contact with your websites. Through automatic malware scans and a process known as “cloudflare integration”, DreamHost works to keep your content and your business safe from would-be predators.
If you don’t want to actually go through the process of creating your own site, or for whatever reason you don’t want to learn how to use the provided web-design creation tools, InMotion Hosting actually offers to build your website for you. By asking some basic questions concerning your needs, InMotion Hosting will actually design and build your website for you, which you can then customize as you see fit. In addition, InMotion Hosting also allows easy Google Apps and social media integration into your existing website. InMotion Hosting also offers some applications specifically designed for commerce-related websites, including Magento and Woo Commerce.
- Customer Support
Both DreamHost and InMotion Hosting offer 24/7 customer support, with the ability to communicate with a qualified expert on the other end of the line. However, while DreamHost advertises that 24/7 support is conducted mainly via email and Twitter, InMotion Hosting also makes it easy to speak to a real person using either a phone number you can call, or a live chat option as well.
- Speed
Both hosts (of course) claim to deliver their services at super-fast speeds, and both claim that your hosted sites will run as fast as modern technology allows. In both cases, these claims seem to be true. DreamHost and InMotion Hosting use SSDs (Solid State Drives). This technology lets websites, data, and caches load faster, which gives your users an overall faster web experience.
- Downtime/Uptime
Both services offer guarantees concerning uptime. DreamHost specifically states they have a 100% uptime guarantee, which means that your website is guaranteed to always be up and running and fully functional. InMotion Hosting boasts a 99.9% server uptime guarantee, which is almost as good as 100%. Not quite. But almost.
- Money-Back Guarantees
DreamHost offers an astounding 97-day money back guarantee. This is a full three months to make sure you are completely satisfied with everything they have to offer. Not to be completely outdone, InMotion Hosting offers a 90-day guarantee. That extra week gives DreamHost the edge in this respect, but either way you look at it, that’s a long trial period to make sure you’re happy with these companies. And, as mentioned earlier, with DreamHost your 97 days free trial doesn’t even start right away — when you are first just setting up and creating your website, you can do so for free. So that 97-day trial doesn’t begin until you take the plunge and publish your site. So, in reality, you’re getting a really long time to make sure that DreamHost is the hosting service you want to go with. That is one claim that InMotion Hosting can not match.
- Value
When you look at all the information, it might seem to be hard to pick a clear winner in the value category. Both of these webhost services offer a lot of bang for your hard-earned buck. Whether you’re just creating your first website or your launching the next big thing in online retail, DreamHost and InMotion Hosting both offer an impressive array of services at very manageable prices. Either way, you’re definitely getting a good value with your monthly premium.
So, Which One Wins?
So, if that’s the case, which hosting service is the winner? Well, it’s really a tough call to make. Since they are so similar in many ways, the devil, as they say, is in the details. While both companies are alike, they do have a couple of differences, and for our money, the winner, based on those details, is InMotion Hosting.
Why? Well, regardless of your level of site expertise, InMotion Hosting just seems to have a better solution in place to help you out. For the new and inexperienced user, both companies offered a wide array of pre-made web templates that were almost infinitely customizable. However, we liked the fact that InMotion Hosting would actually create the site for you, if you wanted them to. By listening to you and the unique needs of your soon-to-be site, InMotion Hosting could build a site for you, with all the features that you need to maximize your online functionality.
For the more experienced user, InMotion Hosting seems to offer a more complete range of services. If you’re looking to sell online, InMotion Hosting’s integration of several industry-standard ecommerce tools really help to turn your website into a retail powerhouse.
And on all levels, of service InMotion Hosting’s customer service clearly wins, as they are readily available through many different channels of communication — something that DreamHost is not able to claim.
Because of these stand-out features, we give InMotion Hosting a slim — but very clear — win in this head-to-head!
Last Updated on June 23, 2021 by Adrian Grant
