| Dreamhost | FatCow |
Summary:
Dreamhost has been a factor for a long time. The company was established in 1997. Dreamhost has 1500+ servers, state-of-the-art data centers, and a full time staff of more than 100 employees. They host more than 1 million domains. Dreamhost is right in the sweet spot for being a powerful and stable web host but not too large to forget about customer service. | Summary:
FatCow is a large web host created in Albequerque New Mexico in 1998. FatCow is built with the beginner in mind in comparison to other web hosting companies. They have received many awards including the 2009 Host of the Year by Consumer-Ranking.com and Hosting-Review.com. |
Email:
Dreamhost provides unlimited custom email addresses on all hosting packages. | Email:
FatCow includes unlimited custom emails for your domain name. |
Site Builder:
Dreamhost does not have a site builder but they have a feature called one-click installer which is similar to fantastico or installatron found at other web hosting sites which installs wordpress, drupal, moodle, zen cart etc quickly and painlessly. | Site Builder:
FatCow provides a drag and drop site builder which can be accessed from the fat cow cpanel when logged in. |
Server Info:
All dream host servers are running debian linux. Their control panel is custom and written by dreamhost. They support programming languages such as Ruby on Rails, PERL, and PHP5. | Server Info:
FatCow servers run on Debian Linux on Apache. Their user control panel is a custom in-house build (not cpanel). They support PHP 4 and 5, Python, and CGI programming languages. |
Bandwidth:
Dreamhost provides unlimited bandwidth on all web hosting packages. | Bandwidth:
FatCow serves up unlimited bandwidth as long as your usage falls within their terms of service. |
Disk Space:
Dreamhost provides unlimited disk space on all web hosting packages (with a 50GB personal backup limit). | Disk Space:
FatCow serves up unlimited disk space as long as your usage falls within their terms of service |
Stats:
Dreamhost has their own custom analog stats package but you can install AWstats on your own shared server if you want to. | Stats:
FatCow uses Webalizer as the visitor statistics tool for accessing graphs and tables showing web traffic statistics. If you want to activate AWstats it is available as a purchased upgrade. |
Database Info:
MySQL is supported by dream host and all web hosting packages come with unlimited MySQL databases. | Database Info:
FatCow provides unlimited MySQL databases in their web hosting package. |
FTP Info:
Dreamhost does support SFTP. You have to set it up though. Under users -> manage users in the dream host control panel you must choose SFTP account. You will not be able to FTP in from then on. The port will be 22. Use SFTP for good after doing this! | FTP Info:
FatCow allows SFTP connections. Use Filezilla or WinSCP to connect on port 2222 to access your fat cow web server securely. |
Customer Support:
Dreamhost uses a forum and technical support via email. They do have live chat but it requires an upgrade fee. | Customer Support:
FatCow offers customer support via phone, email, and live chat via the fatcow.com website. |
Extras:
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Deals:
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Opinion:
The biggest advantage of Dreamhost has to be the customer service. Though the actual hosting is not the cheapest, their customer service is not outsourced and that can be very important when you are trying to debug an issue keeping your website from running optimally. | Opinion:
FatCow takes a friendly approach to web hosting. Instead of burdening the end user with a lot of technical jargon they try to simplify the process and make the web hosting experience fun. This is an ideal host for beginners to learn about the web hosting process. The learning curve to get up and running on FatCow is much lower than some of the other web hosts. |
