| Dreamhost | iPower |
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:
IPower has been around since 2001 and they have established themselves as a web hosting giant. IPower hosts more than 700,000 customers from more than 100 countries. |
Email:
Dreamhost provides unlimited custom email addresses on all hosting packages. | Email:
The starter plan gives 1 pop3 custom email account. The pro plan gives 2500 and the pro plus plan gives unlimited email accounts. |
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:
There is a website builder on both the starter plan and pro plan but they have limitations. The pro plus plan offers more templates. IPower also includes a blog wizard and a photo gallery wizard. |
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:
IPower offers windows server plans but for this review we are only talking about the linux plan. The control panel is not cpanel. It is ipower custom but it is very user friendly. |
Bandwidth:
Dreamhost provides unlimited bandwidth on all web hosting packages. | Bandwidth:
Bandwidth is limited to 250GB on the starter plan but is unlimited for the other plans. |
Disk Space:
Dreamhost provides unlimited disk space on all web hosting packages (with a 50GB personal backup limit). | Disk Space:
Disk space is limited to 5GB on the starter plan but unlimited on the upgrades. |
Stats:
Dreamhost has their own custom analog stats package but you can install AWstats on your own shared server if you want to. | Stats:
IPower offers both webalizer or AWstats which is very nice for keeping basic website statistics. |
Database Info:
MySQL is supported by dream host and all web hosting packages come with unlimited MySQL databases. | Database Info:
MySQL is included in all linux packages on ipower. |
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:
IPower sets up SFTP by default. This is why we like them so much. They pay attention to security more than others. Remember on ipower they use port 2222 for SFTP. Download filezilla or winscp to make your life easier! |
Customer Support:
Dreamhost uses a forum and technical support via email. They do have live chat but it requires an upgrade fee. | Customer Support:
IPower has a live chat feature for customer support. They also provide telephone and an online support ticket system. |
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:
We've hosted several websites on iPower for years. We have never had any major problems. Their custom control panel runs like a dream in comparison to some other web hosts custom control panels. Their uptime is pretty good. It takes about a day to get a response via the support ticket system which is pretty slow but at least they have live chat. They care about internet security more than other web hosts (they have a unique SFTP port!). |
